What If You Can’t Pay For A Funeral?

In end of life care we often are faced with a question like: “My relative just died. We don’t have the money to pay for a funeral. What do we do?”

These situations are never easy, but here are some tips to consider when handling a request for funeral assistance. The good news is that you can make funeral planning choices that reduce expense, and perhaps get some modest financial help to cover some (but probably not all) of the costs. The bad news is that I personally don’t know of any way to get the full cost of a typical funeral covered by public sources.

Before anything else, it’s important to recognize that this is a common problem. In the United States, funerals are very expensive. The burdens of medical care may have already depleted family finances. It’s not something to be ashamed of. Hospice professionals are used to these questions, and helping the family face stress after a death is part of the job of providing total family support. In hospice the unit of care is the family, and facing financial facts is part of the family dynamic.

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