NHPCO Launches Partnership with Grief Care Tech Firm Empathy

The National Hospice & Palliative Care Organization (NHPCO) is partnering with tech company Empathy. The collaboration will allow members of the nation’s largest hospice industry trade group to offer a co-branded version of the Empathy app to their patients and families.

The Empathy application is designed to help families navigate the logistical aspects of bereavement, including documentation, funeral or memorial arrangements, validating a will and other necessary tasks.

The NHPCO partnership stands to substantially build Empathy’s scale. The organization has 1,100 provider members representing more than 4,000 hospice and palliative care locations. NHPCO members care for more than two-thirds of patients who elect the Medicare Hospice Benefit annually. 

“For over 40 years, NHPCO has set the standard for all aspects of end-of-life care, including bereavement support,” said Empathy Co-Founder and CEO Ron Gura.”Together we raise that bar further — improving the care and guidance provided to families while elevating the professional paradigm of the top hospices that NHPCO represents.” 

Families can spend more than 500 hours in the weeks following a loved one’s death to address administrative, legal and financial concerns. This can include account cancellations, estate administration, and insurance claims, according to a statement by Empathy. The application is designed to help manage and streamline these activities.

Empathy is on a growth trajectory. The company recently raised $30 million in Series A funds, led by Entrée Capital, with participation from General Catalyst and Aleph. The company has secured a series of investments this year, including a $13 million infusion in April.

In this recent round of funding, General Catalyst and Aleph doubled their initial investments in Empathy, which represented a portion of that $13 million. A number of angel investors also participated. Angel investors are individuals (rather than organizations) who invest in a company, usually a start up. Companies LocalGlobe and Primetime Partners also contributed funds.

Empathy has attracted attention in the hospice space. Compassus is partnering with the company to offer its platform to the families of their deceased patients as a complement to their own bereavement care services. The two organizations launched a three-month pilot program in the Northeast and plan to roll it out to the more than 200 Compassus locations across 30 states.

“From a logistics and practical standpoint, [this is] accessing helpful information on grief and bereavement when the user might need to find some support,” NHPCO President and CEO Edo Banach, told Hospice News. “Hospices can offer this to their clients and it provides another of the many tools that hospices currently utilize to help provide support and education to those near and dear to the patient.”

The partnership emerged after a meeting between Gura and Banach to discuss bereavement care.

The U.S. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) requires hospice providers to offer bereavement counseling for a minimum of 13 months following a patient’s death, but hospices often go above and beyond by making grief care available to their entire communities, regardless of whether the deceased was their patient.

With COVID-19 spurring an extensive need for bereavement care, many hospices need additional resources to meet rising demand.

“The Empathy app is a valuable addition to the resources and support that hospice bereavement programs already offer to those they care for,” said Banach. “We look forward to working with Empathy to redefine quality and continuous care for the industry at large.”