Better Leave

Betterleave operates a family caregiver communications and bereavement care platform sold to healthcare providers (hospice, home health, palliative care) and to employers. The platform combines text-based (SMS) navigation and proactive messaging with coaching, workshops and support groups, plus access to licensed therapists, family counseling, grief support groups, and wellness, doula and spiritual services. It covers what the company describes as the full bereavement spectrum — pre-need planning, immediate need, loss navigation and continuous grief support — and addresses multiple grief types including loss of a loved one, pregnancy loss, pet loss, anticipatory loss and relationship loss.

For home health and hospice customers, Betterleave positions the product around real-time conversational SMS that captures family feedback, supports treatment adherence, reduces avoidable rehospitalization, and improves CAHPS/HHCAHPS satisfaction scores and referral volume. Provider-side analytics let organizations track family communications, including email opens and text message reads, to measure bereavement care delivery — relevant to hospices, which are required to provide bereavement support for 13 months following a loss. For employers, Betterleave operates as an extension of the People/HR team, providing analytics, communication templates and measurable outcomes to help build and launch bereavement care programs. The company frames "bereavement care" as a new category of care and benefit, a term it says it coined.

Founding story

Founder and CEO Cara McCarty Abbott, an HR leader with more than a decade of experience in human relations and organizational psychology, started the company after experiencing grief firsthand when her mother died following a terminal cancer diagnosis. She had previously co-founded Code Pilot, a training and recruitment platform for hiring teams that was acquired by AngelList. She teamed with Head of Product Sam Leung to build the bereavement care product.

Business model

B2B/B2B2C: Betterleave contracts with organizations — hospices, home health and palliative providers, health systems, insurers and employers — which make the platform and its coach, therapist and death-care expert network available to patients, family caregivers and employees as members.

Sold to provider organizations and employers rather than directly to consumers; the company is also in-network with Humana, Aetna, Cigna, United and BCBSTX for clinical services.

Traction

Reports that 75% of engaged members see improvement in health and wellbeing and a 96% average member satisfaction rating. Employer customers named include Affirm, Spot, Interfor, Evansville Vanderburgh School Corporation and Amplify Credit Union. Provider partners include Sonder Hospice (Austin), LoveWell Hospice (Dallas-Fort Worth), BeyondFaith Hospice, Chesapeake Regional Healthcare and Village Home Health and Hospice; a case study with Village reports readmissions cut by 50% and a 3-point lift in CAHPS scores. In-network with Humana, Aetna, Cigna, United and BCBSTX.

Latest developments

In November 2025 Betterleave announced an integration with Homecare Homebase (HCHB) to provide a fully automated bereavement communications experience for families. Earlier in 2025 it partnered with BeyondFaith Hospice in Texas, received CHAP Verified status, and was named to Bonfire's Rise 50 list of purpose-driven startups. The company also publishes a case study with Village Home Health and Hospice reporting a 50% reduction in rehospitalizations.