The Bureau licenses and regulates funeral establishments and funeral directors; embalmers and apprentice embalmers; cemetery brokers, salespersons and managers; cremation facilities and crematories; and privately owned cemeteries in California. The Bureau also investigates consumer/provider complaints about the death care industry and provides education to consumers.
A general price list is a written form that lists prices (or range of prices) for the services and merchandise regularly offered by a funeral home. You are entitled to receive a copy when you make arrangements.
Professional Services
A licensed funeral director is trained to provide support, arrange visitations and funeral ceremonies, prepare the body for burial or cremation and assist families with legal and insurance-related paperwork. Funeral directors can also recommend professional help if a family is struggling after the death of a loved one.
General Price List (GPL): A written form that lists the prices for all merchandise and services regularly offered by your funeral home. You must give a copy of the GPL to anyone who asks for it in person, including those who make arrangements for funeral goods and services either now or in the future. You must also give a GPL to a survivor if you remove the deceased from the home, hospital or nursing care facility.
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Preparation of the Body
A facility where bodies are prepared for viewing, funeral services and burial. These services include embalming, dressing and casketing (placing the corpse in a container for burying) and cosmetizing (applying cosmetics to improve appearance).
You cannot condition the furnishing of any funeral good or service on whether your consumers purchase one specific item of that good or service, except for your basic arrangement fee and items required by law. You can, however, charge for a refrigeration fee when embalming is not selected or topical disinfection is not required. However, this must be clearly stated in your General Price List and Itemized Statement of Funeral Goods and Services Selected, and it must be a non-declinable charge.
You must provide customers with a copy of your written price list upon initial contact with them, or immediately after they begin discussion of outer burial containers, and again when the container prices are changed. The list must contain at least the retail prices for all outer burial containers offered that require no special ordering, and must be displayed in a conspicuous location.
Arrangements
Arrangements: the meeting between the funeral director and the customer during which the funeral home describes available services, merchandise and prices. A customer can make arrangements for a future service, but he or she also can choose to have a service immediately after death.
If the deceased was an organ or tissue donor, the funeral home should encourage family members to honor that wish by signing up for the New York State Donor Registry and making the appropriate notation on the license of the deceased. If the funeral home fails to do so, you can file a complaint with the Consumer Sentinel Network.
Some funeral establishments enter into agreements with burial societies or religious groups to arrange funerals for their members at special prices. Even if such an agreement exempts the funeral home from making individual arrangements, it must still comply with the Rule’s requirements for giving consumers their General Price Lists and Casket Price Lists.
Final Disposition
You must give consumers your General Price List (GPL) before a consumer makes any arrangements for final disposition, whether in person or over the telephone. You also must provide them with an itemized Statement of Funeral Goods and Services Selected.
The GPL must include a separate non-declinable fee for the basic professional services of your funeral director and staff. This fee should also include any overhead charges that have not been allocated to the other goods and services listed on the GPL. It does not have to be described in detail, but it must state the amount of the fee and the corresponding disclosures.
You may charge a refrigeration fee for cooling the body when embalming is not selected. You must list the charge on both the GPL and the Itemized Statement, together with the required disclosures. You also may charge a topical disinfection fee for external cleansing of the remains when embalming is not selected.