Health and wellnessBooking projects for November
A discharge planner needs a hospice that can admit today. A daughter has a list of three names from the hospital and ten minutes to choose. A nurse is deciding where to work next. All three look at your website first. We build hospice sites that give each of them a clear path, explain eligibility and cost in plain words, show your quality honestly and track which referrals, calls and job applications came from where.
The short answer
A hospice website development company builds websites for hospice and palliative care providers that serve three audiences at once: families deciding about care at one of the hardest moments of their lives, physicians and discharge planners who need a hospice that can admit fast, and nurses, aides and volunteers you need to hire. The site has to explain what hospice covers and when it may be time, prove you serve the family's county, and make referring a patient take a minute.
For an independent or nonprofit hospice that means a 24/7 number on every page, a referral form and line for professionals, plain pages on eligibility, what Medicare covers and where care happens, a page for each county or service area, condition pages for dementia, heart failure, COPD and cancer, your Care Compare link and family survey results, grief support open to the community, palliative care explained separately, and careers and volunteer pages that actually recruit.
Billion Web Studio is a hospice website development company that delivers this as one fixed-scope project: design, service area and care pages, a HIPAA-ready referral form through vendors that sign a BAA, schema markup, and GA4 tracking that separates professional referrals, family calls, job applications and volunteer sign-ups. You own the site, domain and content from day one, with no lock-in.
The market
More Americans now use hospice than ever, the number of providers keeps rising and most new entrants are for-profit. Families and referrers have more choices and more reasons to check carefully. These figures show the size of the market, how late many patients arrive and how quality is now public.
1.8 million
Medicare beneficiaries received hospice care in 2024, including 52.9% of decedents, from about 6,700 providers; Medicare hospice spending was $28.3 billion
Source: MedPAC, Report to the Congress: Medicare Payment Policy, Chapter 10 (Mar 2026)
19 days
median hospice length of stay for Medicare decedents in 2024 (average 99.6 days), so many families find hospice only in the last weeks
Source: MedPAC, Report to the Congress: Medicare Payment Policy, Chapter 10 (Mar 2026)
82%
of hospices were for-profit in 2024, serving 60% of Medicare hospice patients; for-profit providers grew about 5% while nonprofit and government hospices declined
Source: MedPAC, Report to the Congress: Medicare Payment Policy, Chapter 10 (Mar 2026)
45%
of consumers now use ChatGPT or other AI tools for local business recommendations, up from 6% a year earlier; 97% read reviews for local businesses
Source: BrightLocal, Local Consumer Review Survey 2026 (Feb 2026)
How they choose
Most hospice admissions start with a professional referral, but the family still chooses, often in a hurry and on a phone. Here is how a hospice gets chosen in the US and what your site has to do at each step.
1
A physician, hospital discharge planner, nursing home or assisted living nurse suggests hospice. They need to know you cover the patient's county, can admit today or tomorrow, and how to send records. A referral page with a 24/7 line, a short secure form and your service area map gets you on their list.
2
Families are often handed a list. They have the right to choose, and they check names on their phone that night. They want to know who you are, whether you are nonprofit or for-profit, what other families say and how fast someone can come.
3
What does Medicare cover? Do we have to stop all treatment? Can Mom stay in her assisted living? What if she gets better? Plain answers on the page, matching what your admissions nurses say, turn a worried visit into a phone call.
4
More families now look at Care Compare, where hospices with enough completed family surveys get a star rating. Showing your results, linking to your listing and explaining what they mean builds more trust than a page of adjectives.
5
Medicare requires bereavement services for up to a year after a death. Families who received good care come back for grief groups, volunteer, donate and recommend you. Your site should make each of those easy to find.
The problem
What we find again and again when we audit sites in this trade. None of it is about how the site looks.
Leak 01
Case managers want to refer in a minute. Many hospice sites bury the referral fax number on a contact page, with no service area list, no admission hours and no secure online form. The case manager calls the next name on the list.
Leak 02
Eligibility, what Medicare covers, the four levels of care and whether care can happen in a nursing home are often missing or written in regulatory language. Families who do not understand hospice delay the call, and the median stay is already only 19 days.
Leak 03
"Compassionate, patient-centered care" appears on almost every hospice site. With 82% of hospices now for-profit and new entrants every year, families and referrers look for facts: ownership, years serving the county, staff ratios you can stand behind, family survey results and real staff photos.
Leak 04
A single page listing counties rarely shows up when a family searches "hospice in" their town. Without a page per county or service area, you are invisible where you actually drive.
Leak 05
Hospice nurses, aides and social workers are hard to find, and the careers page is often a link to a job board. Medicare also requires ongoing efforts to recruit volunteers. Neither can succeed from a page that says "we are always looking for great people".
Leak 06
Family calls, professional referrals, job applicants and donors all land on the same number and the same contact form. You cannot tell whether your community liaison work, Google or a facility partnership drives admissions.
Our research
On October 23, 2026 we opened the homepages of 20 hospice and palliative care providers that rank in Google Maps in 10 US metros, the way a customer would on a phone, and ran a mobile Lighthouse test on each. Every number below comes from that check.
69/100
median mobile Lighthouse performance score (90 or more is good)
6.2 s
median time to show the main content on a phone (target: 2.5 seconds or less)
1.6 MB
median homepage download on a phone, before anyone scrolls
15 of 19 took longer than 2.5 seconds to show their main content in a mobile Lighthouse test
9 of 20 show a tap-to-call link on the first phone screen
14 of 20 show a clear call, book or quote button on the first screen
8 of 20 have a contact or quote form on the homepage
1 of 20 let visitors book or schedule online
6 of 20 describe the business to Google with business schema markup
10 of 20 have Google Analytics or Tag Manager installed
1 of 20 use call tracking
2 of 20 show a copyright year of 2024 or older (of the sites that show one)
4 of 20 have images with no alt text
14 of 20 link to a privacy policy
7 of 20 offer live chat or texting
The three biggest gaps in the sample. Each is fixable, and each is a reason a customer picks the next result instead of you.
See how your site compares →Only 1 of 20 let visitors book or schedule online. Online booking turns a late-night visit into a confirmed job or appointment, without phone tag.
Only 1 of 20 use call tracking. Calls are the main lead source in most local trades. Without call tracking you cannot see which marketing made the phone ring.
15 of 19 took longer than 2.5 seconds to show their main content in a mobile Lighthouse test. Google counts 2.5 seconds or less as a good Largest Contentful Paint. Slow first screens lose visitors before they see your phone number.
How we checked: Google Maps results for “hospice” in Houston, Phoenix, Atlanta, Denver, Charlotte, Columbus, Tampa, Nashville, Kansas City, Sacramento; the two highest-ranked independent businesses per city (chains and directory listings left out). 20 homepages sampled, 20 loaded for our checker (the rest blocked automated visits), 19 scored by Lighthouse in mobile mode. Lighthouse is a lab test and varies run to run; it is not the same as Google's real-user Core Web Vitals. Businesses are not named. Checked October 23, 2026.
Generic vs built for you
A template is built to fit every business, so it fits yours badly. Here is what changes when the site is planned around how families actually buy.
| What you need | Generic template site | Built for hospice and palliative care providers |
|---|---|---|
| Professional referrals | A fax number on the contact page | A make-a-referral page with a 24/7 line, a short secure form through a vendor that signs a BAA, admission hours and the counties you serve |
| Family questions | One "What is hospice?" paragraph | Pages on eligibility, when it may be time, what Medicare covers, the four levels of care, where care happens and what happens if a patient improves |
| Service area | A list of counties in the footer | A page per county or service area with the team, the facilities you serve there and the local phone number |
| Quality | "Award-winning care" with no source | Your Care Compare link, your family survey results and star rating where published, accreditation and license details shown only where current |
| Conditions | Nothing by diagnosis | Guides for dementia, heart failure, COPD, cancer, kidney disease and ALS: what hospice looks like and signs it may be time |
| Hiring and volunteers | A link to a job board | Careers pages by role with real staff stories, a short application, and a volunteer page with roles, training dates and a sign-up |
| Grief support | A paragraph about bereavement | Grief groups and events open to the community, resources for children, and a calendar families can find |
| Knowing what works | One contact form count | GA4 events that separate referrals, family calls, job applications, volunteer sign-ups and donations, by source and page |
Free self-check · 2 minutes
Tick everything your site does today. Each box you cannot tick is a place where a ready-to-buy visitor leaves.
What you need
The features that turn a hospice website from a brochure into the best salesperson you have. We build all of them.
Must-have · 01
The full number as text in the header, tap to call on a phone and a sticky call bar, with "available 24/7" next to it, matching your Google Business Profile.
Must-have · 02
For physicians, case managers and facilities: the referral line, a short secure form, what to send, admission hours, the counties you cover and the name of the liaison for their area.
Must-have · 03
Plain signs that hospice may help, who qualifies (a life expectancy of six months or less if the illness runs its normal course, certified by physicians), that patients can stop hospice at any time, and how to start the conversation.
Must-have · 04
What Medicare covers, that drug coinsurance is capped at $5 per prescription and respite care at 5% of the Medicare payment per day, Medicaid and private insurance, and what is not covered, such as room and board in a facility.
Must-have · 05
Routine home care, continuous home care, inpatient respite and general inpatient care explained in plain words, and the settings you serve: homes, nursing homes, assisted living and your inpatient unit if you have one.
Must-have · 06
One page for each county or metro you serve, with the local team, facilities you work with, a map and a local phone number where you have one.
Must-have · 07
Dementia, heart failure, COPD, cancer, kidney disease, ALS and stroke: what hospice care looks like for each and the signs families and doctors watch for.
Must-have · 08
Your Care Compare listing, your family survey results and star rating where published, ownership and nonprofit status, accreditation and license details, shown only where current.
Must-have · 09
If you run a palliative care program, its own pages, because palliative care is not limited to the last six months and patients can keep curative treatment.
Must-have · 10
Community grief groups and resources for up to a year or more, a veterans page, and pages for dementia, pediatric or cultural programs you actually run.
Must-have · 11
A page per role with real staff photos and stories, benefits, a short application tracked by source, and volunteer roles, training dates and a sign-up.
Must-have · 12
Large type and strong contrast for older caregivers, a WCAG 2.1 AA target, Core Web Vitals targets, and MedicalOrganization and LocalBusiness schema for each office.
What we build
Good hospice website design starts with the sitemap. Here is the one we would start from for an independent hospice serving six counties with one inpatient unit. We cut or add pages to match your programs, service area and audiences.
For families
For referring professionals
Care and programs
Service areas
Grief and community
About and join us
Calls, bookings, leads
Good hospice web design is judged by what happens next: a referral sent, a family call answered, a nurse hired, a volunteer trained. You should see where each one came from. This is how we build those paths and track them, without ever pushing a family.
AI search
Families and case managers now ask ChatGPT, Google AI Mode and Perplexity which hospice serves their county, what hospice covers and how to tell good from bad. BrightLocal's 2026 survey found 45% of consumers use AI tools for local recommendations, up from 6% the year before. Assistants answer from your website, your Google profile, Care Compare and reviews, so your site has to state plainly where you serve, what you offer and how you perform.
Questions your families ask AI assistants
Service areas as text
Every county and city you serve written on its own page, so an assistant can match you to the family's location.
Plain answers to family questions
Eligibility, cost, levels of care, where care happens, what happens if a patient improves and the difference from palliative care, each answered in the first lines of the right page.
Facts that set you apart
Ownership and nonprofit status, years serving the area, an inpatient unit, specialty programs, languages spoken and admission hours, stated plainly.
Quality an assistant can check
A link to your Care Compare listing and your published family survey results, so an answer can cite them accurately.
One identity across site, profile and listings
The same name, offices, phone and hours on your site, Google Business Profile and directories, with a page per office.
Schema for the organization and offices
MedicalOrganization markup for the hospice and LocalBusiness markup per office, plus FAQ markup only where answers are visible on the page.
Compliance and trust
A hospice site touches Medicare conditions of participation, fraud and abuse law, HIPAA and the rules on reviews and texts. We build pages and forms that support these rules. We do not certify compliance; your compliance officer and counsel have the final word.
Hospice eligibility means a terminal illness with a life expectancy of six months or less if the illness runs its normal course, certified by physicians. Patients can revoke hospice at any time. Coinsurance is capped at $5 per prescription and 5% of the Medicare payment for respite days (42 CFR 418.400). We write these facts exactly and never imply anyone must stop all care.
Medicare's hospice rules require bereavement services for up to a year after a death and volunteer time of at least 5% of paid patient care hours, with ongoing recruiting (42 CFR 418.64 and 418.78). Grief support and volunteer pages help you show both.
MedPAC reports CMS revoked Medicare enrollment of 122 hospices in four states under enhanced oversight as of June 2025. Gifts to induce enrollment and pay tied to referrals are federal risks. Site copy informs and never pressures, and our tracking measures your own channels, never per-admission payments.
Referral and intake forms, records uploads, chat and recorded calls go through vendors that sign a Business Associate Agreement. HHS guidance on online tracking was partly vacated in AHA v. Becerra (June 2024), but identifiable health information on referral and logged-in pages is still covered, so ad pixels stay off those pages.
The FTC Consumer Reviews and Testimonials Rule, in effect since 21 Oct 2024, bans fake or bought reviews and hiding negative ones. Family testimonials appear only with written permission. Texts need consent and opt-out wording under the TCPA.
Hospices receiving HHS funds, including Medicaid, must meet WCAG 2.1 AA under Section 504 by 11 May 2027 (15 or more employees) or 10 May 2028. We build to that target. Quality, accreditation and star rating claims are shown only as currently published.
We build with tools and patterns that support these rules and document what we set up. For legal advice on your own obligations, talk to your attorney.
Asked online
We read what families and caregivers ask on r/hospice, r/AgingParents and r/CancerCaregivers and on the AgingCare caregiver forum, and what viewers ask under hospice nurse and hospice business videos on YouTube. Families want to know how to choose, what to ask, whether they can switch and where care can happen. Owners and marketers ask about referral sources and incentives. These are their questions, paraphrased, with straight answers.
From r/hospice
Our answer: Families on r/hospice list the same questions: how often nurses and aides visit, how fast someone comes at night, whether there is an inpatient unit, who the hospice doctor is and what bereavement support follows. A hospice website that answers each one in plain words, with your actual visit model and after-hours process, does the interview before the family calls.
From r/AgingParents
Our answer: Advice on r/AgingParents: ask how often they come, how and when you can reach the hospice doctor, what services they offer and what happens in a crisis. Medicare's hospice benefit includes nursing, aide, social work, chaplain, drugs and equipment for the terminal illness, and bereavement support for up to a year. Say which of these you provide and how often.
From r/CancerCaregivers
Our answer: A caregiver on r/CancerCaregivers faced this. Medicare's Care Compare publishes each hospice's family caregiver survey results, with a star rating for hospices that have at least 75 completed surveys. For the median hospice, 82% of caregivers rated it 9 or 10 (MedPAC, March 2026). A hospice that links its listing from its own site makes this check easy.
From r/hospice
Our answer: One reply on r/hospice preferred a larger company for faster help when calling. Size is one factor; others are visit frequency, after-hours response, an inpatient unit and ownership. MedPAC reports about 82% of hospices were for-profit in 2024. Families can compare only what hospices publish, so state your counties, team size, response times and ownership plainly.
From r/hospice
Our answer: Yes. Under Medicare rules a patient can change the hospice they use once in each benefit period, and can also revoke hospice entirely at any time. Replies on r/hospice reminded the poster of this right. A hospice website should explain how a transfer works and how quickly you can accept a patient from another hospice.
From AgingCare forum
Our answer: AgingCare members answered that, unless you signed a contract limiting it, you can choose any Medicare-certified hospice that will serve the facility. Nursing homes must have a written agreement with any hospice that serves their residents, so ask which hospices a facility works with. Hospices should list the facilities they serve on each county page.
From AgingCare forum
Our answer: Both, as AgingCare members explained. Physicians certify that a patient has a life expectancy of six months or less if the illness runs its normal course; the patient, or their representative, chooses whether to elect hospice and which provider. A plain "Is it time for hospice?" page helps families start that conversation with their doctor sooner.
From YouTube comments on a hospice sales video
Our answer: A viewer raised this under a video on hospice sales. Federal anti-kickback law bars paying anyone to induce Medicare referrals, with narrow exceptions such as bona fide employee pay, and CMS revoked the Medicare enrollment of 122 hospices in four states under enhanced oversight as of June 2025 (MedPAC). Websites should educate families and referrers, never pressure them.
From YouTube comments on a hospice nurse's video about choosing a hospice
Our answer: A viewer asked a hospice nurse this on YouTube. Hospice care is also given in nursing homes, assisted living, hospice inpatient units and hospice residences. Medicare covers short-term inpatient care for symptoms that cannot be managed at home, but not room and board in a facility. A "where we provide care" page should list the settings you serve.
From YouTube comments on a hospice nurse's video about choosing a hospice
Our answer: Another viewer asked this. The VA covers hospice care for enrolled veterans, and veterans with Medicare can also use the Medicare hospice benefit. A veterans page that explains both routes, how you coordinate with the VA and any veteran-specific programs you run helps families and VA social workers who refer.
From YouTube comments on a video about choosing a hospice
Our answer: A viewer asked this under a video on choosing a hospice. Patients have the right to choose their hospice. Ownership is public in Medicare's provider data, and MedPAC reports for-profit providers grew about 5% in 2024 while nonprofit numbers fell. A hospice that states its ownership and nonprofit status on its site answers this directly.
From YouTube comments on a hospice marketing video
Our answer: Viewers asked this under a hospice marketing video. CDC WONDER publishes mortality data by county and cause of death. It tells a hospice which conditions to explain best, for example dementia, heart failure or COPD, so condition pages and referrer education match the patients you will actually serve.
Questions are paraphrased from public posts and comments on Reddit, YouTube, forums and social media. We never quote anyone by name.
Others vs us
The three ways hospice and palliative care providers usually get a website, side by side.
| Billion Web Studio | Website builder template | Typical industry agency | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Who owns the site, domain and content | You do, from day one, in your own accounts | You own the content; the site lives on the builder's platform | Often the agency; leaving can mean rebuilding |
| How it is paid for | A fixed build price quoted in 1 business day, no hourly billing | Monthly subscription, and you build it yourself | A monthly retainer, often on a 12-month contract |
| Referral path | Make-a-referral page, 24/7 line, secure form with a BAA vendor | A contact form | Usually a referral page; form security varies |
| Service area pages | A page per county or metro with local detail | One page if you write it | Often templated city pages |
| Family education | Eligibility, cost, levels of care and condition guides in plain words | Up to you | Generic blog content |
| Hiring and volunteers | Role pages and applications tracked by source | A job board link | Varies |
| Tracking | GA4 events that separate referrals, family calls, applications and volunteers | Basic form counts | Agency dashboards that may stay with them |
| AI search and schema | Plain-text answers, organization and office schema, Core Web Vitals targets | Up to you | Varies |
| Contract | No lock-in; 30 days of free support, then optional care plans | Monthly, cancel any time | Often 12 months |
Why Billion Web Studio
We review your current hospice web design: referral path, family pages, service areas, quality content, careers and tracking. Then you get a written scope and one fixed price based on pages, features, integrations and content. No hourly billing.
Families, referring professionals and job seekers each get their own front door, so nobody has to hunt for the page they need.
Eligibility, cost and levels of care written from the regulations and reviewed by your team, so the site says what your admissions nurses say.
HIPAA-ready vendors that sign a BAA for referral and intake forms, no ad pixels on those pages, and conversion events without health details.
GA4 and call tracking that separate referrals, family calls, applications and volunteer sign-ups by source, so you can see what your liaison work and the website actually produce.
A week-by-week plan, weekly written updates and 30 days of free support after launch. If we slip a date because of us, the next month of support is free.
In writing, before we start
Fixed quote in 1 business day
Scope, deliverables and price agreed in writing, with a free audit of your current site. No hourly billing.
Launch date in writing
A dated week-by-week plan and a written update every week. If we slip because of us, the next month of support is free.
You own everything
Code, design, content, domain and accounts are yours from day one. No 12-month contract, no rented site.
30 days of support included
We watch rankings, forms and call tracking after launch and fix anything that needs it.
Proof, not promises
A hospice grows on local referrals and calls from the counties it serves, which is what our local lead system was built to produce and measure. Blues Renewables, a local rooftop solar installer, got service pages, 129 local area guides, guides that answer buyers' questions and every call and form tracked as a GA4 lead event, and went from no tracked leads to 7 to 10 enquiries a week, with Google clicks rising from 14 to 560 a fortnight and impressions from 860 to 35,466 a fortnight in two months. For a hospice its area guides become county pages, its guides become eligibility, cost and condition pages, and its tracking separates referrals from family calls. Trucks India shows we can build and keep order across a large page set: 497 models, 1,299 variant pages and 351 broken links fixed. Our Godstone Consultech site, built for a staffing firm that hires contract, temporary and permanent staff, shows how we structure careers pages, and our YUVA Law Firm site shows consultation forms written for people going through a hard time.
Blues Renewables · Rooftop solar installer
Trucks India · Commercial vehicle research
Process
Typical timeline: 4 to 8 weeks for most hospice sites; 8 to 12 weeks for multi-county or multi-state hospices with many service area and location pages. You see progress every week.
Step 01 · Week 1
We audit your current site, competitors, and how you show up on Google and in AI answers, then agree on goals and a fixed quote.
Step 02 · Weeks 2 to 3
Sitemap, wireframes and full designs for your review. You approve everything before we build.
Step 03 · Weeks 3 to 6
Development, SEO setup, speed tuning, and testing across devices and browsers.
Step 04 · Launch and beyond
We launch, monitor, and improve based on real data. 30 days of free support included.
What shapes your quote
Every project gets a fixed quote within 1 business day, agreed before work starts.
Get my fixed quote →Straight answers to what owners ask us, and what they ask Google and AI assistants. Ask us anything else.
We quote one fixed price, agreed before work starts, based on the number of pages, features, integrations and content. You get it within 1 business day of a free audit of your current site. There is no hourly billing.
Referrers check you online before they add you to their list, and families who are handed three names look all three up. A clear referral page, county pages and plain family guides decide whether your name gets called.
We recommend linking to your listing and showing your published family survey results with context. Families and case managers can see them on Care Compare anyway, and showing them yourself signals confidence. Claims are shown only as currently published.
Yes. We build the referral form on a vendor that signs a Business Associate Agreement, keep ad pixels off the page, and route referrals to your intake team. If your EMR accepts online referrals, we connect it where it allows.
Yes. We build a page per role with real staff stories, benefits, schedules and a short application, tracked by source, so you see which pages and channels bring applicants. We can also connect your applicant tracking system.
Usually yes. Families search for hospice in their own county or town. A page per service area with local detail helps you appear there and shows referrers you cover the patient's address.
No website is HIPAA compliant on its own. We build referral forms, intake, chat and call tracking with vendors that sign a BAA, keep ad pixels off those pages and send conversion events with no health details. Your HIPAA program stays yours.
Usually yes, with its own section, because palliative care is not limited to the last six months and patients can keep curative treatment. Clear separation stops families and doctors confusing the two.
A page per office and service area that matches your Google Business Profile, plain-text answers about eligibility and cost, your Care Compare link, reviews linked from the site and organization schema. Nobody can guarantee a ranking or an AI mention, but accurate, consistent facts give them something to use.
The Justice Department says the ADA applies to the goods and services businesses offer on the web, and hospices receiving HHS funds such as Medicaid have Section 504 deadlines in May 2027 or May 2028 for WCAG 2.1 AA. We build every site to that target.
Most take 4 to 8 weeks; multi-county or multi-state hospices take 8 to 12 weeks. You get a dated week-by-week plan and a written update every week. You own the code, design, content, domain and every account from day one, with no lock-in.
Many hospice web design companies sell templated pages on a monthly retainer. We build a site you own outright, with separate paths for families, referrers and job seekers, Medicare facts written exactly, privacy built into every form and tracking that separates referrals from family calls and applications. The terms are in writing first: a fixed quote in 1 business day, a dated plan and no lock-in. The same tracked lead system took Blues Renewables, a local service business, from no tracked leads to 7 to 10 inquiries a week.
Four quick questions. You'll get a fixed quote and a free audit of your current site within 1 business day.
Prefer email? info@billionwebstudio.com
