Long Term Health Care Insurance

Who does NOT need Insurance?

Insurance is an important means to protect one self, assets, and properties against risks. For e.g. travel insurance comes handy incase of lost baggage or any accident you meet while traveling out of city. Health insurance pays your doctor and hospital bills if you are injured.

What is one suppose to do if faced with the need for long-term health care services? How would you deal with the financial obligations incase you need long term care services and need to stay either in a nursing home or need care at your own home?

For the naïve, long-term health care is more than the medical and nursing care that includes assistance for activities for daily living. This arises in case you have chronic illness or disability that disallows you to take care of your self for a long period of time.

In most cases, long-term health care services are availed by older people. A young or middle-aged person too can benefit from long-term care services in case of an accident or incapacitating illness.

Long-term health care services can be availed in nursing homes, assisted living facility or even your own home. Long-term care broadly encompasses wide range of services such as visiting nurses, home health aides, friendly visitor programs, home delivered meals, chores and adult daycare centers.
Long-term health care costs

Factors affecting the cost depend

* Level of service you need.
* Length or duration of time of services. The cost also varies w.r.t the city or town you are staying in.
* The places where you receive long term care services. Nursing home or your own residence. Home care service could be bit inexpensive, but if you have health aide coming home to relieve you of many responsibilities like bathing, dressing, feeding, etc, the cost could spiral upwards.
* In case debilitating sickness, cost of skilled help increases the overall cost of long-term care services.

It is impossible to predict what kind of care is needed in future or what the costs will be. Long-term health care insurance protects you against the risk of much larger out of pocket expenses. Long-term care insurance helps you pay for these services.

Long-term health care insurance is a relatively new and quite a few companies are offering this kind of coverage. Ordinary health policies and Medicare do not cover or cover minimal long-term health care costs. Medicaid pays for long-term care in case you have exhausted your savings and assets.

Long-term health care insurance should cover the following costs

* Cost of home health aides that help in your home with daily activities like bathing, dressing
* Community programs such as adult day care centers
* Assisted living services provided in special setting other than your home. Services include meals, health monitoring and help with activities of daily living.
* Care in nursing home
* Alternate and respite care

Long-term health care insurance is not everybody's cup of tea. Before you buy, read and understand as much as you can about it. Make sure that you have a good reason to buy long-term health care insurance. Long-term care insurance is quite expensive and anyone in good health availing it has to pay good amount of premium yearly covering nursing home care and home care. It is necessary that you should be able to afford these premiums in case your income declines.

Most people don’t think about long term care services until they get in there 70's and their health begins to fail. Middle age is the best time to consider whether you want to buy the policy or not. Though no age is late to purchase insurance of this. It is just that long term health care insurance in old age could be more expensive when compared to buying the same when an individual is in their early 30's or 40's.