Qualis vs. HospiceMD: Which Hospice Software Is Right for You?

If you're evaluating hospice software, HospiceMD and Qualis come up in different parts of that conversation. They're not competing for the same function. Understanding what each does will help you figure out what you actually need.

What Is HospiceMD?

HospiceMD is a hospice-specific electronic health record (EHR) system. It's built to handle the clinical documentation, care planning, and compliance workflows that hospice agencies manage daily.

HospiceMD functions include:

• Patient intake, eligibility, and admission documentation
• Care plan creation and clinical charting
• Physician orders and certifications
• Medicare claims and billing for clinical services
• IDT (Interdisciplinary Team) meeting documentation
• CAHPS and quality reporting

HospiceMD, like most hospice EHRs, is the operational center for clinical care management. Hospice agencies that use it are primarily focused on charting, compliance, and billing for clinical services.

What Is Qualis?

Qualis is a hospice DME management company. It handles durable medical equipment operations: ordering, vendor coordination, delivery confirmation, and billing reconciliation for the equipment used in patient care.

Qualis is not an EHR. It doesn't manage clinical documentation or care plans. What it manages is the equipment layer of hospice operations, which most EHRs handle inconsistently, if at all.

Qualis products include:

• DME+: Centralized equipment ordering with preauthorization controls and EMR integration
• Utilization Management: Spending visibility and benchmarking against national averages
• Vendor Choice: Access to 900+ vendors with the flexibility to switch when performance falls short
• Partner Services: A dedicated team that manages vendor relationships and handles escalations directly

How They're Different

The distinction comes down to what problem each platform solves.

HospiceMD solves clinical documentation and compliance. If your team needs a structured way to chart, manage care plans, and submit claims for clinical services, that's an EHR function.

Qualis solves DME operations. If your team is spending hours on vendor calls, dealing with invoice disputes, or losing money on equipment that's still renting after a patient's discharge, that's a DME management problem.

Most hospice agencies need both. They need an EHR for clinical operations and a DME management layer to control equipment costs and documentation.

Where Hospices Run Into Trouble With DME

EHR systems are built around clinical workflows. DME management exists at the intersection of clinical orders, vendor logistics, and financial reconciliation, and most EHRs don't handle all three well.

Common problems hospice agencies encounter:

• Equipment continues billing after a patient is discharged because the EHR discharge didn't trigger a vendor pickup
• Orders placed verbally or by fax leave no central record in the EHR
• Invoices from vendors don't match what was ordered, and reconciliation falls on coordinators
• Audit documentation for equipment is scattered across vendor emails, phone logs, and manual spreadsheets

Do Qualis and HospiceMD Work Together?

Qualis is designed to work alongside your existing EHR, not replace it. If your hospice uses HospiceMD for clinical documentation, Qualis adds a structured layer for DME ordering, vendor management, and billing reconciliation.

When a nurse places an equipment order in your EHR, that order flows into Qualis for fulfillment, vendor coordination, and delivery confirmation. When a patient is discharged in HospiceMD, Qualis receives the signal to initiate a pickup and stop billing.

The two systems handle different workflows and work better together than either does alone.

Which One Do You Need?

You need an EHR (like HospiceMD) if: Your team needs clinical charting, care planning, IDT documentation, and Medicare billing for clinical services.

You need Qualis if: Your team is spending significant time on DME vendor calls, dealing with billing errors tied to equipment, or struggling to produce clean audit documentation for equipment orders and pickups.

Most hospice agencies need both. An EHR handles clinical operations. Qualis handles the DME layer that EHRs weren't built to manage.

Why Hospice Teams Add Qualis to Their Existing Tech Stack

Hospice agencies using Qualis alongside their EHR report meaningful operational improvements:

• Hospice of Atlanta reduced DME-related complaints by 85%
• Tender Care Hospice reduced DME spending from $60,000 to under $40,000 per month
• Qualis customers save an average of 120 hours per week per location that was previously spent on manual DME management

Those results came from fixing the DME layer, not switching EHRs.

HospiceMD and Qualis aren't alternatives to each other. They're tools built for different functions in hospice operations. If you're evaluating both, start by asking which problem you're actually trying to solve.