What to Do When Someone Dies at Home

The first thing to know is that what you do depends on one fact: whether the death was expected. If the person was on hospice or under a doctor's care for a terminal illness, you don’t call 911. If the death was sudden and nobody was expecting it, you do.

That one distinction changes who you call, who comes to the house, and how fast any of it happens. This page walks through both, plus the calmer things that are true either way: you’re usually not on a clock, you choose who takes the body, and a lot of what feels urgent can wait an hour while you sit with the person. Steps vary by state, and where they do, this says so.

Start by answering one question: was this expected? A death is expected when the person was on hospice or being treated by a doctor for a terminal illness, and the people around them knew it was coming. It’s unexpected when it’s sudden, an apparent heart attack, an accident, a person found dead, and no doctor was managing an end-of-life illness.^[3]

If it was expected and the person was on hospice, call the hospice line. It’s staffed 24 hours a day. Don’t call 911. If it was unexpected, or you aren’t sure and the person might still be revived, call 911.

Either way, you don’t have to move fast on everything. Once the death is confirmed, there’s time. You can sit with the person. You can call family. The paperwork and the funeral home come after, and they can wait an hour or two.

Call 911 only if the death was unexpected, or if there’s any chance the person can still be revived and you want them revived. When a death at home wasn’t expected, calling 911 is how you get a medical professional to declare the person dead, and the crew may transport them to an emergency room to do it.^[3] Unless there’s a valid do-not-resuscitate order in front of them, paramedics may start CPR.

If the person was on hospice, 911 is the wrong number. Call the hospice line instead.^[1] If someone has already dialed 911 out of reflex, tell the dispatcher the person was on hospice and have the DNR or POLST form ready to show the crew.

Call the hospice team's number. It’s answered around the clock. Tell them the person has died. They’ll talk you through what happens next and send a nurse to the house.^[1]

There’s no ambulance and no police. The hospice nurse comes to confirm the death, note the time, and contact the physician who will sign the death certificate. If you’ve chosen a funeral home or cremation provider, the nurse or the hospice office will call them to come collect the body; if you haven’t chosen one yet, you have time to decide. The hospice staff also dispose of the person's medications, which is a federal requirement.^[1]

Until then, there’s nothing you have to do. Sit with the person. Let family come. Hospice doesn’t put you on a clock. If you want to understand what the days before this look like, read what nobody tells you about hospice.

Call 911 first. Dispatch will send paramedics, and depending on what they find they may try to revive the person or transport them to an emergency room to be declared dead.^[3] If the person can’t be revived, police usually come to the house as well.

When a death is sudden, unattended, or has no clear cause, the case is often referred to the county medical examiner or coroner. That office decides whether to examine the body to determine how the person died, and in many cases it will take the body for that before it goes to a funeral home.^[4]

Until responders arrive, leave the scene as it is. Don’t move the body, clean up, or throw anything away. If there will be an investigation, that matters. It’s procedure, and it doesn’t mean anyone suspects you.

When a death happens outside a hospital and wasn’t expected, police response is routine. An officer confirms what happened, secures the scene, and waits for the medical examiner or coroner if one is being sent. Medical examiners and coroners investigate deaths that are sudden, unexpected, or unexplained, so a home death with no doctor attending a known illness often becomes their case.^[4]

The police being there is routine procedure for a death at home. It doesn’t mean anyone is suspected of anything. You may be asked plain questions: when you last saw the person alive, what medications they took, whether they had been ill. Answer plainly. It helps the medical examiner sign the cause of death without a longer investigation.

It depends on who’s there and on the laws of your state. The death has to be pronounced by someone in authority, usually a doctor or, for a hospice patient at home, the hospice nurse.^[1][2][3] When a medical examiner or coroner is involved, that office makes the official determination. If nobody with that authority is at the house, calling 911 is how you reach one.^[3]

The rules for exactly who’s allowed to pronounce death, and what has to happen next, are set state by state, and sometimes county by county. There’s no single national rule. If you’re unsure who to call in your state, your hospice team knows, and so does the non-emergency line for your local authorities.

You aren’t on a deadline measured in minutes. After the death is confirmed, most families spend some time with the person and then call a funeral home or cremation provider, who usually arrive within a few hours. Nothing bad happens because you waited an hour to make that call.^[1][2]

A body does begin to change after death, and rigor mortis starts within the first few hours.^[2] Some families choose a home vigil and keep the person at home longer, using cooling to slow those changes; whether and how you can do that is set by state law. If it’s something you want, ask the funeral home or a home-funeral guide about the rules where you live.^[5]

You decide who takes the body. A funeral home or cremation provider comes to the house, moves the person, and holds them while you make arrangements. You aren’t required to use whoever the responders suggest, and you don’t have to have picked one before the death; you can decide afterward.^[1][2]

If a medical examiner or coroner took the body to determine the cause of death, they release it to the funeral home you choose once they’re done. Someone may also raise organ or tissue donation. If the person registered as a donor, that registration counts as legal consent, and an organ procurement organization decides what’s medically possible.^[6] Ask the hospice team or the funeral home how it works where you are.

From there the logistics begin. Our guide to arranging a funeral covers what comes next, and closing accounts after a death covers the paperwork. For a step-by-step list you can work through in order, use the when someone dies checklist. For the institutions, the who-to-notify tracker keeps the calls and the paperwork in one place.

This page is general information, not legal or medical advice. Steps vary by state; when in doubt, call your hospice team or your local authorities. For our sources and how we check them, see our Sources and Methodology.