How Our Directory Works

​We believe you deserve to know exactly what you're looking at — so here's the honest breakdown of what's paid, what's earned, and what can't be bought.

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The short version

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Hospice providers can pay for an enhanced listing on Hospice Guidebook. That subscription affects how a provider's listing looks and where it can rank when you haven't chosen a specific sort order. It does not affect the quality data itself — CMS scores, star ratings, and our "Provider Excellence" recognition are pulled from federal data and can't be purchased, adjusted, or influenced by any subscription.

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What a paid subscription affects

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• Visual presentation — a subscribing provider can add a photos, short and long descriptions, a website link, and additional coverage areas beyond their primary address.

• Default browsing order — when you first arrive and haven't chosen a specific sort option, listings are ordered by distance first, with subscriber tier used only to break ties between providers at the same distance

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What a paid subscription does NOT affect

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• CMS quality scores — HCI scores and CAHPS caregiver ratings come directly from federal Medicare data and are identical regardless of subscription status.

• The "Provider Excellence" recognition — this only appears when a provider's actual CMS data meets a fixed quality threshold and cannot be purchased. This is presented only when a provider's HCI score is at least 9.0/10 AND its CAHPS score is at least 4 stars out of 5. 

• Explicit search results — the moment you actively choose to sort/filter by Quality, Urgent Response, or Inpatient Care, we check the real answer to that question first, for every provider, before subscription tier is used for anything. A non-subscribing provider that genuinely offers inpatient care will always outrank a subscribing provider that doesn't, when you've asked to sort by that.

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Why we built it this way

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Subscriptions are how we fund the expenses that let this directory exist — collecting and maintaining accurate, current CMS data for thousands of hospice providers nationwide isn't free. But we don't think a family looking for the right hospice for someone they love should ever have to wonder whether the "best" result is actually the best, or just the one who paid the most. So, we drew a hard line: money can buy visibility and presentation. It cannot buy quality data, and it cannot override what you explicitly asked to see.

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Your Privacy Choices and Rights

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You may request access, correct, or delete the personal information we hold about you, or ask us to stop using it for marketing, by contacting us at info@hospiceguidebook.com. We will respond to reasonable requests consistent with applicable law. Please note that we may need to retain certain information (such as financial records) to comply with legal, tax, or safety obligations even after a deletion request. Subject to certain exceptions set forth below, on receipt of a verifiable request from you, we will:

• Delete your personal information from our records; and

• Direct any service providers to delete your personal information from their records.

• Please note that we may not be able to comply with requests to delete your personal information if it is necessary to:

  • Complete the transaction for which the personal information was collected, and provide a good or service requested by you, or reasonably anticipated within the context of our ongoing business relationship with you, or otherwise perform a contract between you and us;

  • Detect security incidents, protect against malicious, deceptive, fraudulent, or illegal activity; or prosecute those responsible for that activity;

  • Debug to identify and repair errors that impair existing intended functionality;

  • Exercise free speech, ensure the right of another consumer to exercise his or her right of free speech, or exercise another 

  • Comply with the California Electronic Communications Privacy Act;

  • Enable solely internal uses that are reasonably aligned with your expectations based on your relationship with us;

  • Comply with an existing legal obligation; or

  • Otherwise, use your personal information internally in a lawful manner that is compatible with the context in which you provided the information.

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Questions or concerns

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If anything about how a listing appears seems off, or you'd like more detail on how we handle a specific case, contact us at info@hospiceguidebook.com.