Learn how an innovative company is contracting with insurers to educate patients about decision-making around advanced illnesses.
My guest Tracy Brubaker is the COO of Vital Decisions, a company founded by Dr. Jessica Zitter to focus on changing the way people with advanced illness receive care by encouraging advance care planning. She shares how Vital Decisions contracts with insurers to provide education and counseling to their clients and the impact they are having on end-of-life care. Learn more about Vital Decisions at the website:
This episode includes:
- What inspired the creation of Vital Decisions
- How Vital Decisions works with insurers to educate their clients and guide them through advance care planning at no cost to the patient
- Why Vital Decisions chooses Masters level clinicians as their team members
- How team members initiate and structure conversations about end-of-life issues
- The two most common motivations for people to decide to complete their advance directives
- 60-70% of Vital Decisions clients complete their paperwork and have conversations with the important people in their lives
- Benefits to patients and insurers: fewer inpatient and ER visits, less unwanted aggressive treatment, and lower costs at end of life
- How the My Living Voice program helps healthy individuals easily complete an advance directive online at no cost
- How the Guided Living Voice program educates patients and their families about palliative care
Links mentioned in this episode:
- Workshop on Top Lessons for Living from Those at the End of Life – sign up now to get the early discount rate!
- Register here for FREE Life Class with Suzanne O’Brien (and me!) on September 3rd!
- Previous interview with Dr. Jessica Zitter
- My Living Voice from Vital Decisions
- Subscribe to this podcast on Apple, Google, Spotify, iHeart Radio, Stitcher Radio
- Check out the Series I’ve recorded in the past here
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In this episode I share some thoughts about how to get involved in the end-of-life movement if you have recently become interested in death and dying. You’ll hear about my best ideas for contributing to change in the way people die and offering your service to others.
Welcome to our new sponsor: 
Join me and my guest Suzanne O’Brien RN for a free webinar: “EOL Doula Training for Caregivers and Volunteers” on Tuesday July 24th at 5 pm Pacific/8 pm Eastern. 
death and dying in our society. Consider teaching your own class or workshop to provide information to others in your community. Get the Teaching Guidelines for a Death & Dying Class 
In this episode I focus once again on death education and talk about the qualities that are best suited to teaching this subject matter. Find out if you would be a good teacher and what subject and students are ideal for your knowledge and experience.
In this episode I share some recent studies that validate the fact that being aware of death has positive effects on behavior toward others. This is evidence that we need more classes, workshops, books, films, and discussion groups about death in order to promote health, peace, tolerance, and compassion in the world.
You can also get the Teaching Guidelines for a Death & Dying Class 
In this episode I share an interview with Stacy Smith who teaches a course in the Psychology of Death and Dying to students at a local community college. She’ll offer some great tips about teaching your own class and help you get inspired to become a death-ed teacher!
This week I’m continuing my focus on death education by discussing some important reasons why right now we desperately need more death-ed in every aspect of our society. Learn how you might become a death educator in your own community and start to share your knowledge to help others become aware of death.
You can download my free pdf: 
In this episode I talk about some of my own personal goals for the New Year and then discuss a list of ideas for ways in which we need to improve all aspects of the end of life. Get some inspiration for steps you can take within your own community and in your own personal life to “Be Good at Death.”
In this final episode of 2017 I take a look back at the previous year and share my thoughts on some of the events and people that I believe will have a big impact on how our society deals with the end of life.
You can support this podcast by making a small donation of $1 or $2 at 
with patients and their loved ones by creating “word clouds” for each patient, using the patient’s name plus adjectives and phrases suggested by loved ones and staff members (see the example of a word cloud in this photo.) Healthcare staff say the word clouds help remind them of the humanity of each patient, allow them to get to know the patient better, and stimulate story-telling about the patient. Families often take the word clouds home with them to help with their grieving process. (Make you own word clouds at 
Holly Pruett is a Life-Cycle Celebrant, Home Funeral Guide, and the founder of Death OK: Let’s Talk About It, a ten-hour day of inspiration, information and connection in Portland, Oregon. She is also the founder of