Long-Term Care Planning Attorneys

Long-term care insurance is used to fund a variety of long-term care services. When determining whether you need or want long-term care service, you should think about:

• Your age
• Health status
• Your retirement goals
• Income and assets

If you do not have a large amount of assets, it may be difficult to afford a long-term care service. Public assistance may be available for individuals who meet certain requirements. However, public assistance for long-term care is only available after meeting strict criteria.

For example, Medicare can pay for long-term care up to 100 days for rehabilitative care in a nursing home. However, most people can only qualify for an average of 22 days of care. This leaves those who do not qualify for federal and state programs to turn elsewhere.

Other avenues individuals can seek for long-term care plans are:

• Individual policies – individual policies vary from one insurance company to the next.
• Employee policies – an advantage of employee policies is that you will likely not need to meet any medical requirements.
• Association policies – associations allow insurance agencies to sell insurance policies to their members. Policies purchased through an association typically allow members to keep their policies after leaving the association.

The costs of long-term care insurance can greatly differ depending on who is providing the policy. Since the long-term care business is expanding due to people living longer, it does not have many industry standards. Meaning, when looking for a long-term care insurance policy it pays to shop around. One insurance company may charge you a significantly higher price than another.