Betterleave, an AgeTech Collaborative™ participant, is a leading bereavement care platform that provides digital tools, group support, specialized coaching and clinical care across the full spectrum of grief and loss. Their award-winning enhanced bereavement care management programs are trusted by employers and health plans to reduce costs and drive better health outcomes for every journey through grief and loss.
We spent time talking with founder and CEO Cara McCarty Abbott about the company, its mission and what the future holds for Betterleave.
This interview has been edited for clarity and length.
Please tell us about Betterleave.
Betterleave is a digital health company providing emotional, psychosocial, spiritual and logistical support during bereavement.
Bereavement care is defined as the experience of grief and loss after you’ve lost someone. It’s holistic care that involves psychosocial care, mental health care, spiritual care and logistical care. Betterleave helps people with those things during pre-bereavement and bereavement via a provider network of death doulas, chaplains, grief therapists and end-of-life coaches, who can be there for all the questions, thoughts and feelings that you might have during that process.
You mentioned pre-bereavement. Can you say more about that?
That would be a situation where, for example, a loved one has been diagnosed with terminal cancer and you’re processing anticipatory grief. We do a lot of caregiver fatigue support for people who are supporting loved ones with a terminal or chronic illness, because often they just need to talk to someone.
We help across the dimensions of different needs that you might have while you’re experiencing grief and loss. When a loved one passes away, maybe you need help planning the funeral or claiming benefits. Or maybe you just need to talk with a licensed therapist or grief coach about the “new normal” your life will be after this.
What was the catalyst for founding Betterleave?
We sit at the intersection of healthcare and death care, which is a unique place to be, and it was driven by two things. First, I’ve spent my entire career in human resources, primarily supporting the health, wealth and happiness of employee populations. When the pandemic hit and people were dying at unprecedented rates, employees were burning out due to the stress of dealing with loss and grief on such a scale. And there wasn’t anything I could provide for them. So I knew there was a gap on the employer side with regard to bereavement care.
This was coupled with my experience of my mom being diagnosed with terminal cancer. She went from being a very healthy individual to passing away within a matter of weeks. I held her hand through that journey, and she was my guide as I learned about all the nuances around both a patient’s end-of-life experience and caregiver support.
That's difficult news about your mom.
I believe that as a society, we don’t talk enough about grief, loss and death — it’s still very stigmatized. There are a lot of incredible companies doing work around preventative medicine and longevity and all these beautiful, wonderful things to help us live long, healthy lives. And we certainly support that. But the fact remains that death is a part of life, and that should have just as much care and support as the considerations given to longevity. So that’s what Betterleave has set out to do: provide support during arguably one of the most challenging points in someone’s life.
What are some of the obstacles you’ve encountered while you’ve grown Betterleave?
The biggest one is society at large not wanting to accept and discuss death and dying. It’s hard even for individuals to acknowledge to themselves that we’re all going to die. If we can start to normalize the conversation around that, it can actually make for a much more beautiful experience. But most people don’t want to think about the end-of-life process and they don’t plan, and that’s when they find themselves scrambling and facing anxiety over high costs or the unknown expectations or wishes of their loved ones.
When my mom and I were going on this journey together, I very candidly asked her what kind of funeral she wanted to have. That’s a hard conversation to have with someone. Our coaches are great guides that can help people have these kinds of conversations.
There's a positive side to this challenge: There’s a lot of opportunity for innovation to make things better. There aren’t a lot of companies doing what we do, and there needs to be more. There should be more education and more people investing in it because there’s a lot of space to make significant shifts both in society and on the individual level of providing support.
What’s next on the horizon for Betterleave?
We’re looking to grow and scale our provider network, so we’re always actively looking for individuals who are certified or licensed for work with grief and loss. That could include death doulas, grief coaches, spiritual guides and chaplains — we’re always looking for people who want to provide their services in a different capacity through our virtual, tech-enabled services.
We’re also looking for more enterprise partners who want to provide bereavement care for their employees or member base. We’re industry-agnostic; we support employers across industries from lumber and milling to life sciences and tech, along with enterprise health systems and hospice groups. Death doesn’t discriminate; it touches all of us. So wherever bereavement leave is available, we want Betterleave to be a part of it.