Can You Buy Insurance To Protect You if You Need Long-Term Care?
By Barry Zimmer on December 19th, 2017 in Asset Protection, Assisted Living facilities, Elderly parents, Long-Term Care, Medicaid, Medicare Recipients
Cincinnati Medicaid planning is important because for most people who require nursing home care or long-term care at home, Medicaid is the only source of third-party payments for these vital healthcare services. As the Wall Street Journal explains once you reach the age of 65, you have a 40 percent chance of requiring nursing home care and a 20 percent chance of requiring that care for at least five years. This care can be very expensive, so you’ll need to make a plan to pay for it.
Many people wrongly assume Medicare will provide them with coverage for nursing home care, but this is simply not true in most circumstances. Medicare covers skilled nursing care but does not provide coverage for routine help with activities of daily living.
The majority of people who require nursing home care or long-term care just need this routine help with things like bathing and dressing. This type of care, called custodial care, is also not available from other health insurers or from Medigap or Medicare Advantage. If you are not covered by insurance for it and you have to pay out-of-pocket, you could end up spending your life savings in a matter of months.
You don’t want this to occur, so you should work with Zimmer Law Firm to understand your options for getting long-term care covered. One of your options is to buy a long-term care insurance policy, but buying this type of insurance is not always going to be the best approach to making sure that you are able to pay for the care you need.
Can You Buy Insurance if You Need Long-Term Care?
There are long-term care insurance policies available that purport to provide coverage in case you need long-term care at home or in case you require nursing home care as you get older. Unfortunately, the policies that you can purchase often will not provide the protections that you expect.
The AARP highlighted several potential problems with long-term care insurance coverage that make such policies an impractical approach to making sure you can afford nursing home care or home health aides. One big issue is that premiums can become very expensive as you get older. Of course, your chances of requiring nursing home care rise as you get older. This means that when you reach the age where you may really need long-term care insurance coverage because of a significant risk that you will need to move to a nursing home care, you may become unable to afford to pay for a long-term care policy and may not be able to stay covered.
Even if you are covered, you also have another problem. Your policy could have limitations that result in the insurance not actually covering the costs of nursing home care you need. There may be a waiting period on your policy that leaves you paying for care for weeks or months before coverage kicks in. There could also be a maximum daily limit which is too low to allow you to afford to pay for the costs of a high quality nursing home or a responsible home health aide. And, there could be a lifetime limit on benefits which means you end up running out of coverage for nursing home care while you still need care.
Since a long-term care insurance policy may not actually provide the necessary coverage, you should look into alternatives for making sure you are able to pay for a nursing home. One of the options you should consider is making a Medicaid plan. Medicaid will cover the costs of nursing home care if you require this care but you won’t be eligible if you have too many financial resources. If you don’t want to impoverish yourself to be able to get Medicaid, you can work with Zimmer Law Firm to protect your wealth and get Medicaid coverage when you need it.
Getting Help from Cincinnati Medicaid Planning Attorneys
Cincinnati Medicaid planning attorneys can help you to protect assets by structuring the ownership of your wealth so the assets you own will not cause disqualification from Medicaid. The best approach to take, and the amount of assets you can protect, will depend upon how early you make your Medicaid plan before the time comes when you need care. Because acting early allows you to protect more of your wealth, you should give us a call at 513.721.1513 today to get your plans underway. You can also join us for a free seminar to learn more about the Medicaid planning process and why this process is so important to you.