Yesterday’s post may have made you think that long term care is hopelessly expensive. After all, if the average duration of care is 3.7 years for a woman, and nursing homes cost (it varies widely) $70,000 per year, doesn’t that mean you should have $250,000 cash on hand, or 4 years’ of long term care insurance? Not necessarily-most care is received at home. If you’re retired, your spouse may be able to provide care for awhile if your needs aren’t severe. If you progress to needing assisted living, it typically costs only about 1/2 of the cost of nursing home care. Steve Young of CBS Moneywatch wrote an excellent article on this topic: http://moneywatch.bnet.com/retirement-planning/blog/money-life/long-term-care-what-are-the-real-risks/1305/?tag=content;col1.

Coming next: an online long term care insurance premium calculator! Have you scoured the entire internet looking for this?

The AARP public policy institute has done excellent research on the risk of needing care.  Find their article here: http://www.aarp.org/relationships/caregiving/info-2007/fs27r_ltc.html. The Federal resource site on long term care, longtermcare.gov, has the same statistics: http://www.longtermcare.gov/LTC/Main_Site/Understanding_Long_Term_Care/Basics/Basics.aspx#needs.

Here’s a handy dandy diagram with the above data shown visually:

Genworth Financial has an excellent tool called the ‘cost of care map’. Each year the numbers are updated based on their nationwide survey. If you check it out, make sure you use the ‘calculate future costs’ tool at the bottom of the page to estimate the cost of care when you reach a given age-the onset of the need for care is normally near age 80-85. http://www.genworth.com/content/genworth/us/en/products/long_term_care/long_term_care/cost_of_care.html

Here’s a video explaining some of the basics of long term care insurance. It’s simply a slideshow with audio commentary. I’ll be posting more of these soon.

Long Term Care Insurance, Explained

The Partnership for Long Term Care Insurance took effect in Oregon as of January 1, 2008.  People who purchase new qualified LTC Insurance policies are able to protect a portion of their estate from being claimed by Medicaid in the event the state eventually pays for LTC on their behalf. This is exciting for several reasons, including the fact that it is more ethical than a ‘medicaid spend-down’ and the fact that it is much more difficult to attain a ‘medicaid spend-down’ than in the past.

Long Term Care Insurance is simply insurance that helps pay for your long term care needs when they arise. A good Long Term Care Insurance (LTCi) policy will help pay for care at home or in a facility, help protect your assets from being seized by Mecaid after your death, help keep your family from feeling the guilt, envy, shame, pride, etc. that goes along with being or not being the family member who is caring for you. In this blog we’ll talk about LTCi, as well as alternative types of insurance that can help pay for long term care along with taking care of other types of insurance needs. We’ll talk about and define Activities of Daily Living (ADL’s) as being the ‘triggers’ that make one eligible to collect LTCi  insurance benefits, and we’ll talk lots of other fun, acronymical words!