Building the Business Plan for Community-Based Palliative Care
What You’ll Learn
- Prepare a business plan for your program using the information collected from a needs assessment
- Identify key elements of the budget for your community-based palliative care program
- Describe variables that will impact the budget and business plan for your community-based program
- Identify how partnerships will sustain the program
- Organize compelling examples of value that provide justification for program funding
What You’ll Earn
Only CAPC members who are logged in can earn the following free Continuing Education Credits:
- Case Management: 1.00 CE
- Medicine: 1.00 CME
- Nursing: 1.00 CNE
- Social Work: 1.00 CE (NYSED)
This course is only available to CAPC members. Learn More
LoginTake the course
Take the post-test
Complete course evaluation
Download your certificate
Tools & Resources
Use this tool to organize your working assumptions about patient population, service model, and program staffing.
This tool uses the information from your needs assessment to project patient volume for the community-based palliative care program.
Template and example for estimating time per patient visit for a new visit and for follow-up/subsequent visits, including a calculator for generating a weighted average visit time. Center to Advance Palliative Care, 2017.
Predicting capacity to match planned FTEs with planned service offers. The tool uses examples for illustration and should not be used as predictive. Center to Advance Palliative Care, 2017.
Uses your time per visit estimate to project the number of visits a clinician will make per year, at different assumptions of weighted average hours per visit and annual visits per patient. Center to Advance Palliative Care, 2017.
Estimate the number of unique patients per clinician per year, taking into account visit frequency and duration. Center to Advance Palliative Care, 2017.
Average costs per team member by discipline, taking into account non-billable time.
Template and example for estimating time per patient visit for a new visit and for follow-up/subsequent visits, including a calculator for generating a weighted average visit time. Center to Advance Palliative Care, 2017.
Model your assumptions about costs based on the variables of staff cost, staff time allocation, and patient volume.
Overview of CMS rates for community-based services and template to estimate revenue.
Organize working assumptions about patient population, service model, and program staffing. Center to Advance Palliative Care, 2017.
Use this tool to organize your thinking on the budget and business plan, and to identify gaps that require more research.
Populate your budget using data from your needs assessment and service design.
Guide to creating a community-based program business plan, including making the business case, defining value, and creating a work plan and budget.
Defines key terms in payment vocabulary. Center to Advance Palliative Care, 2017.
Introduction to value-based payment and its implications for palliative care. Center to Advance Palliative Care, 2019.
Small-group consulting calls with national subject matter experts.
Course Faculty
Lynn Hill Spragens, MBA. President and CEO Spragens & Associates, LLC.
Tom Gualtieri-Reid, MBA. Consultant, Spragens & Associates, LLC.
Peer Reviewers
Elizabeth Man, MD. Fellow, Geriatrics and Palliative Medicine, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai.
Contact information: For technical questions about online activity or continuing education credits, contact membership@capc.org or 212-201-2674.

Provided by the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai.