November Is Long Term Care Awareness Month.
(1) What is long-term care (LTC)? It’s help with the activities of daily living (ADLs) such as bathing, dressing, using the toilet, transferring (to or from bed or chair), caring for incontinence, and eating.
“Most long-term care is not medical care,” the HHS agency points out, but rather assistance with the basic personal actions everyone must perform to get along in life.
(2) Who needs care? According to recent research, almost 70% of Americans turning age 65 will need LTC services at some point, HSS reports. Advancing age and gender are key factors.
“The older you are, the more likely you will need care,” says the agency, and “women outlive men by about five years on average, so they are more likely to live at home alone when they are older,” requiring paid care or care by relatives.
(3) How much care will you need? “One-third of today’s 65 year-olds may never need long-term care support, but 20 percent will need it for longer than 5 years,” says HHS. Also, women need care longer than men, 3.7 versus 2.2 years.
(4) Who will provide your care, and where? Care may be provided by an unpaid caregiver (family member or friend); or by a paid caregiver such as a nurse, home health or home care aide, and/or therapist who comes to the home; or by adult day care services in the area or a variety of long-term care facilities.
“Most long-term care is provided at home,” says HHS, and “about 80 percent of care at home is provided by unpaid caregivers and may include an array of emotional, financial, nursing, social, homemaking, and other services.”
(5) Who pays for long-term care? Medicare may cover some skilled and rehabilitative services, but “does not pay for non-skilled assistance with Activities of Daily Living (ADLs), which make up the majority of long-term care services,” HHS reports. Unlike Medicare, Medicaid does pay for the majority of care services, “but to qualify, your income must be below a certain level and you must meet minimum state eligibility requirements.”
Most employer-sponsored or private health insurance covers only the same kinds of limited care as Medicare. So Americans must look to other means of payment. These include long-term care insurance, reverse mortgages, life insurance options, and annuities, according to HHS.
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Abbe S Pensack, CLTC
Abbe Pensack Insurance, LTD
Long Term Care Insurance Specialist
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