Insurance Over Texas Offers Long Term Care Insurance in the Houston, Texas Area
Texas long term care information
What is Long Term Care Insurance?
Because of age, mental illness, physical illness, or injury, certain individuals find themselves in desperate need of help with everyday activities (eating, bathing, dressing, toileting). These procedures are called Activities of Daily Living-sometimes referred to as ADLs. Normally, if you can't do two or more of these activities, or if you possess a cognitive impairment, you are thought to need long-term care.
Long-term care is not a very supportive name for this type of condition because, for one thing, it may not last for a long period of time. Certain people who need ADL services might require them only for a few months or less.
A lot of people think that long-term care is offered exclusively in a nursing home. It can be, but it is also offered in an adult day care center, assisted living facilities, or in the privacy of your own home.
Assistance with ADLs, referred to as custodial care, may be offered in the same place as skilled care. Skilled care means medical, nursing, or rehabilitative services, including aid in taking medicine, help with testing (e.g. blood pressure), or other similar services. This distinction is significant because Medicare and most private health insurance pay only for skilled care, not custodial care.
If you need long-term care and have to pay to obtain them, what financial resources could you request? Do you have an adequate amount to pay for 4 or more years in a nursing home, assisted living facility, or home health care?
Should I purchase long-term care insurance?
If you are above the age of 65, do not rely on Medicare or private health insurance. Medicare does not pay for custodial care, and private health insurance hardly ever pays any of the cost of long-term care.
If you anticipate to have very little money when you need long-term care services, you may meet the requirements for Medicaid, a government program that pays the medical and long-term care expenses of unfortunate people. If you expect to be in that condition, you probably should not buy long-term care insurance, because Texas Medicaid program will pay your long-term care operating cost. Buying long-term care insurance would only save the state money, not you.
If you expect to have a large amount of money when you need long-term care services, you also almost certainly should not buy long-term care insurance. As an alternative, you should plan to pay for the care personally; that is, as a regular expense. One financial advisor suggested in a news interview that if your net worth is in the $1.6 million range, excluding the value of your home, you could safely skip buying long-term care insurance and treat long-term care expenses, if they occur, as you do your other bills.
If you fall in-between both of these categories, possessing long-term care insurance, like all other insurance coverage's, proposes peace-of-mind benefits as well as financial ones. For example, a current survey of people age 50 and above asked how certain they were that they could pay for long-term care services if they needed them. Among those with long-term care policies, 52 percent said they were very certain and another 40 percent said they were somewhat confident. Among those who did not own a long-term care policy, only 8 percent were extremely confident and only 27 percent were fairly confident.
But if you are younger than 85, and especially if you are younger than 65, that does not mean you should disregard the topic of long-term care insurance because:
You may already be unable to purchase long-term care insurance. Wakely Consulting Group, an actuarial firm, did a study on applicants for long-term care insurance in 2003-2004; the results: 11 percent of applicants in their 50s, 19 percent in their 60s and 43 percent in their 70s were rejected.
A Milliman and Robertson actuary predicted that 15 to 25 percent of the above 65 age group is uninsurable for long-term care.
A report by the Henry J. Kaiser Foundation points out that over five million people ages 18-64 need some type of long-term care.
The most recent data from the National Center for Health Statistics (for 1999) reported that approximately 160,000 of the people living in nursing homes were below the age of 65 (nearly 10 percent of the total). Of those receiving home health care services, around 400,000 were under the age of 65 (about 30 percent of the total).
So, unless you have so little funds that you will be eligible for Medicaid, or so much money that you can pay the bills out of your pocket, you ought to consider purchasing long-term care insurance.
More Long Texas Term Care Insurance Information
