Direct Cremation – What’s Involved…
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Families often ask why a “simple” direct cremation costs as much as it does. Such inquiries usually occur when someone is contemplating what funeral home to select to care for their loved-one. Please know that regardless of whether there is to be a direct cremation or a more traditional burial, the State of New York requires any funeral home to maintain a building with a viewing room, a preparation room, and an arrangements room. Also, a direct cremation service is not nearly as simple as it might seem. Listed below are various services and merchandise provided by the Wilson Funeral Home that are part of providing a direct cremation service.
While many of these items are legal requirements, most others are provided as part of the Wilson Funeral Home’s mission to provide dignified and professional services for the deceased and their survivors. Regardless, all such services are typically completed within a 24- to 36-hour time frame from the time of death.
- A compassionate and timely response to your call for service.
- Coordinate removal of the deceased with the proper hospital, nursing home, other institutional staff or legal authorities, as necessary.
- Remove the deceased from the place of death by New York State licensed personnel (usually more than one person) using a state certified, inspected, and maintained removal vehicle. This is accomplished as soon as is feasible by the funeral home staff, or our agents, and is sometimes completed in extreme conditions.
- Transport the deceased to the funeral home.
- Properly care for the deceased while necessary work is completed prior to the cremation. [Care for the deceased is the responsibility of the funeral home even in the case of time delays, such as waiting for family to arrive or waiting to obtain required authorizations.]
- Accommodate any need for proper identification of the deceased.
- Sanitarily remove and properly dispose of regulated medical waste products.
- Sanitarily remove medical implants from the deceased that can damage crematory retorts. [This is a crematory requirement and must be certified by the family.]
- Provide an appropriate cremation container for the deceased, which the family may provide. [Typically, the cremation container is one made of reinforced fiberboard, but may be other merchandise selected by the family or agent thereof.]
- Cleanse and topically disinfect the deceased as needed and sanitarily wrap the deceased before respectfully being placed into the container for cremation. Additionally, the deceased may be dressed prior to cremation.
- Determine the proper authority (i.e., family member) to make arrangements for the final disposition of the deceased. [Usually a family member is the authorized agent, but authorization can also be provided by a Final Disposition Agent].
- Provide a pleasant location for an arrangement conference with the person in charge of the disposition of the deceased, or travel and meet with the person in charge at an otherwise agreed upon location.
- Secure and complete an Agent Declaration form when needed.
- Return personal items such as jewelry to the person(s) in charge of the arrangements.
- Conduct an arrangement conference to obtain necessary vital statistics information.
- Provide all appropriate price lists to the family.
- Complete an itemized statement of the goods and services selected, and provide a copy to the informant (by law, this form must be maintained on file at the funeral home for a period of four years).
- Complete the proper cremation authorization forms (by law, this form must be maintained on file at the funeral home for a period of four years).
- Complete a Customer’s Designation of Intentions form.
- Obtain biographical information used to write an obituary (a family may decide to write their own).
- Draft an obituary when requested (publishing a brief death notice in a local paper is sometimes provided at no extra cost).
- Scan, and when necessary enhance the quality of, pictures to accompany obituaries for the purpose of obituary publication.
- Publish and maintain obituaries on the funeral home website for a period of one year.
- Accept and review messages of condolence intended for funeral home website publication, publish such messages, and maintain them on the website for a period of one year.
- Deliver a death certificate to the appropriate physician, medical examiner, or other medical personnel when necessary.
- Obtain proper physician or medical examiner signature and cause of death information for the death certificate, which in some instances requires substantial time and funeral home vehicle use to accomplish.
- Accurately complete a death certificate, which by law can only be filed by a licensed funeral director, within a 72-hour time period, and in the proper jurisdiction (city, town, or village clerk in the locale where the death occurred). At times, this requires substantial time and funeral home vehicle use to accomplish.
- Obtain a cremation permit from the registrar in the locale where the death certificate is filed.
- Obtain needed legal (certified) death certificate copies on behalf of the survivors for estate purposes (a copy of which is maintained by the funeral home), and obtain additional copies at a later date for survivors when requested.
- Maintain 24-hour telephone coverage and staff, and answer questions for the family or the public regarding any such service.
- Coordinate with the crematory to schedule the cremation.
- Transport the deceased to a crematory using a state certified and inspected transport vehicle.
- Present all appropriate forms, and payment, to crematory staff.
- Obtain a receipt for the remains from the crematory (by law, this form must be maintained at the funeral home for a period of four years).
- Obtain the cremated remains from the crematory on behalf of the family.
- Physically place the cremated remains in an urn, cremation jewelry, or other container(s) for the family when requested.
- Return the cremated remains to the family or…
- Deliver the cremated remains to a local cemetery when requested.
- Inter (i.e., dig and backfill grave) the cremated remains when requested.
- Complete and secure the following forms on behalf of the family: When appropriate, issue refunds to the local social services agency when there is an irrevocable trust overage, or to the family in the case of a revocable trust residual.
- Social Security Administration form SSA-721;
- Necessary veterans forms for obtaining a flag and delivering it to the family;
- Necessary veterans forms for obtaining a grave marker which is usually received by the funeral home and then delivered to the cemetery or a monument dealer for mounting, or given to the family;
- Necessary veterans forms to obtain benefits (when applicable);
- Insurance assignment or claim forms; or
- Necessary preneed payment claim forms.
- Make contacts on behalf of the family to appropriate clergy, an attorney, veterans, or fraternal organizations or restaurants as needed.
- Provide a limited number of memorial and/or acknowledgment cards to the family.
Please note: when the death occurs at a substantial distance from our location, virtually all of the above services can be provided by us, usually at very little or no additional cost.
Above all else, please know that we understand your need to have your loved-one cared for in a dignified and professional manner. We are a family-owned business and will try our best to treat you like a member of our family.
