Long term care can be a complicated issue
and some people sometimes misunderstand the details. The best way to avoid
misinformation about long term care is to learn the facts.
Here are five busted long term care myths:
1. I am still young and I don’t need long term care
Long term care is
not exclusive to the elderly. Almost forty percent of long term care is
provided to people under age 65.
People who need
long term care require assistance with taking care of themselves due to:
·
Diseases
·
Disabling chronic conditions
·
Injury
·
Developmental disabilities
·
Severe mental illness.
Age does not
always determine the need for long term care and can be caused by external
factors that may have affected an individual’s ability to do certain tasks.
2.
My family will take care of me
The adult
children of today’s society have different goals in life and such is to live
further away from their parents as soon as they can.
Aside from
leaving their parents as soon as possible, they are also taking less vacation
time and working longer hours.
In truth, taking
care of a family member is a full-time commitment that often demands a
significant number of hours from multiple family members.
Even if family
members are able to find time to provide care to the relative in need, it often
dramatically affects the provider of care’s income.
Having a family
take care of you may be an option but it will be difficult without additional
assistance.
3.
Medicare or Medicaid will pay for my care expenses
Medicare is
generally available for people over age 65, as well as the disabled. It only
pays certain amounts for skilled care, followed by hospital stay. It is also not
intended to cover care that assists people with activities of daily living for
long periods of time.
To be specific, Medicare
covers the first one hundred days of skilled care in a nursing home after a
hospital stay of at least 3 days and as long as you enter a nursing home within
30 days of leaving the hospital.
Medicare will
cover some home health care for the treatment of an illness or injury.
Learn more about what
Medicare does and does not cover at www.medicare.gov.
To become
eligible for Medicaid, people are required to meet their state’s required level
of assets. Because of the requirement, people make attempts to "spend
down" their assets.
Some of the
common attempts include transferring their assets to family members, however,
states now have the authority to examine a Medicaid applicant's past five years
of finances and impose penalties.
Find out more
about eligibility and Medicaid coverage at www.medicaid.gov.
4.
Health Insurance will cover my bills
Ongoing chronic
care needs are rarely covered by health insurance. Most health plans, such as
TRICARE, TRICARE for Life, and FEHB, are designed to cover skilled, short term
medical care while you recover from an injury or illness.
5.
I can save enough on my own
Paying privately
using personal savings is a basic way to cover long term care expenses.
However, you will need to consider the expenses of long term care services
before deciding to pay out-of-pocket.
The current
national averages for long term care services are as follows:
·
$19/hour – home health aide
·
$71/day – care in an adult day
care center
·
$227/day – a semiprivate room
in a nursing home
·
$258/day – a private room in a
nursing home
·
$3,427/month – care in an
assisted living facility
Home care, the most
preferred long term care service, is generally more affordable than nursing
home care but still can be expensive. The national average cost of a six-hour
visit by a home health aide is $114 which equals to $29,640 per year for a home
health aide visiting six hours per day, five days a week.
In 2013, the
national average cost of a semiprivate room in a nursing home was $82,855 per
year.
You may want to
consider the total cost if you need more than one year of care. For example,
the cost of care for three years is more than $248,000.
If you can afford
these expenses, paying for long term care out-of-pocket may be an option for
you.
These figures provided
are national averages and long term care services may be less expensive or more
expensive in your region.
Also, each individual's
situation, condition, and need is unique and you may save more or less than
others.
Before you jump to conclusions about long
term care, be sure to learn more about the facts, instead of making your
decisions based on other people’s opinions.
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