Long-Term Care Insurance And You

By Robert Bones

Long term care insurance is insurance which provides for in-home care of the patient. This would be added to the patient's current health insurance policy, or it is provided thru Medicare plans. It is a plan which should be purchased separately from services for health coverage such as doctor's appointments or hospice stays.

The services that long-term care insurance covers are services for the elderly or patients who want help with daily living activities at home like quadriplegics. Daily living activities include dressing, meal preparation, bathing, or driving to appointments. This service would pay for somebody like a caregiver to come into the home to help with these desires. It is helpful for folks whose close family members are not able to absolutely provide these needs.

The population which has used this insurance most frequently is the aged and younger folk who can't function on their own. This can also include services for recess care which could comprise caring for children with incapacities or younger adults who've been seriously hurt. Many aged patients might have cognitive disorders like Parkinson's disease or Alzheimer's where their communicative and memory abilities are lacking.

Apart from in-home care, long-term medical care insurance may pay for entry to facilities. These would include care home care, managed living facilities, or adult daycares.

There are a few benefits to buying long term care insurance. Purchasing a plan noticeably reduces the cost of getting caregiving services if no long-term care insurance plan was ready. These services can be awfully dear and having the insurer pay for a caregiver saves an enormous sum of cash. For example, if a patient has Medicare the services are practically no cost to the patient.

Secondly, purchasing these plans are fully tax deductible, and if a business is a paying the premiums for the service, it is also 100 percent deductible.

The commonest type of policies available are tax-qualified policies. In order to qualify for these policies, someone must use the services for no less than 90 days. Also, the patient must need help in at least 2 areas of assisted daily living ( ADL's ) like eating, meal preparation, dressing, showering, walking, transferring from a bed to chair, continence, for example. A physician must write the orders for a care plan for the patient. This is a tax-qualified policy,the premiums are non-taxed.

There are many factors which establish long-term care insurance rates. They include the age of the patient, the daily benefit of the plan, how long the advantages will pay, and the patient's health rating ( preferred or standard ). Most insurance corporations will give married couple's kickbacks on individual policies. Some firms also outline "couples" not only to spouses, but to two folks who meet criteria of living together in a relationship sharing basic daily costs.

There are many folks who need additional care at home, and these policies provide a substantial quantity of security for those that can't take care of themselves. At the same time, they relieve a large financial burden if no policy were in place. - 29970

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