Hospice
Hospice scheduling software, for a week that keeps changing.
Five disciplines in one home, a plan of care revised as the patient declines, and the visits that matter most arriving by phone to a nurse in a car. What the software has to do.
Hospice scheduling looks like home health scheduling from a distance and is a different problem up close. The interdisciplinary team is larger, the visit frequency changes as a patient declines, the unplanned visits are the ones that matter most, and every one of those visits is a drive. This page is about what software for it has to do.
What is different about hospice
- The IDT. Nurse, aide, social worker, chaplain, physician, volunteers. Several disciplines visit the same home in the same week and must not collide with each other or with the family's own rhythm.
- Frequency that moves. A plan of care written at admission is revised as the patient changes, sometimes weekly, sometimes overnight. The schedule has to follow without a re-entry marathon.
- Unplanned visits are the job. Symptom crises, a death, a family in distress. These arrive by phone, not by referral, and the person who answers is usually in a car.
- On-call and continuous care. Coverage windows on top of routine visits, with different staff and different rules.
- Geography. Hospice caseloads are often wider than home health ones, which makes the drive between visits a larger share of the day.
What most scheduling software gets wrong for hospice
| Assumption | Why it breaks |
|---|---|
| One clinician per patient | A hospice patient has five. The schedule is a set of visits per home, not per clinician. |
| The plan is fixed for the episode | Frequency is revised as the patient declines. A schedule that cannot absorb "twice a week from now on" is a chore. |
| Changes come from the office | The nurse who takes the crisis call is the one who has to re-plan, and she is driving. |
| A visit is either done or not | Hospice needs "suggested" versus "agreed with the family", because the family is planning their own week around it. |
What we built, and how it maps to hospice
Frequency lives on the patient, and the week is re-planned from it
"Rosa, three times a week from Monday" is one sentence. The week is re-solved from the new frequency; visits that no longer fit are named with a reason rather than silently dropped.
The day changes by voice, from the car
"Arthur's family called, go there next." The day re-orders around the urgent visit, drive times recompute, and whatever falls out is listed. Nothing moves until you confirm.
Suggested is not agreed
Every visit is marked as one or the other, so nobody tells a family a time that nobody agreed, and moving a visit clears the agreement on purpose.
Hands on the wheel, data on the phone
Speech is recognised on the device and audio never leaves it. Addresses are placed by servers we run. The drive itself is handed to Apple Maps or Google Maps as coordinates only.
Questions to ask any hospice scheduling vendor
- Show me a frequency change mid-episode. How many taps?
- A symptom crisis comes in at 10am. Show me the nurse re-planning from her car.
- Two disciplines are due at the same home this week. How does it keep them apart?
- What does the family see, and how do you stop a suggested time being quoted as agreed?
- Where does the patient's address go when the nurse looks at the map?
Questions people actually ask
How is hospice scheduling different from home health scheduling?
A hospice patient is visited by several disciplines in the same week, the visit frequency changes as they decline, the most important visits are unplanned, and on-call and continuous care sit on top of routine visits. Home health scheduling assumes one clinician and a fixed plan for the episode.
Does Obillions handle on-call or continuous care?
Not yet. It plans and orders a clinician's visit day and week from the plan of care, and re-plans by voice when the day changes. On-call rosters and continuous-care shifts are out of scope today, and we say so.
Can the schedule follow a change in visit frequency?
Yes. Frequency lives on the patient and the week is re-solved from it. A visit that no longer fits is named with a reason rather than silently dropped.
How does a hospice nurse re-plan after a crisis call?
By saying what changed. The urgent visit goes next, the rest of the day re-orders around it with drive times recomputed, and nothing moves until the nurse confirms.
Does it stop two disciplines colliding at the same home?
Visits are placed on the week per patient, so a second discipline's visit is planned around the first rather than on top of it. We do not claim to replace the IDT meeting.
Is Obillions available for hospice teams now?
It is in private testing on iPhone. A public TestFlight comes next. Write to hello@obillions.com if your team wants to be in the test.
Obillions
A voice agent for a day of visits. You say what changed and the day re-plans itself: the order, the drive times, and who nearby could take the hour a cancellation just freed. Nothing changes until you confirm, and your voice and photos never leave your phone.
In private testing now. A public TestFlight comes next, then the App Store.