Bayada Nurses: Unraveling the Facts of Long-Term Care Insurance – LIVING WELL Magazine

Unraveling the Facts of Long-Term Care Insurance

Diane Ream, MS, RNC, and Diane Riley, Bayada Nurses, East Denver LIVING WELL Magazine

Long-term care insurance is a privately purchased insurance policy developed specifically to cover care expenses not covered by traditional health insurance or Medicare. Long-term care insurance helps you to protect your savings and assets against the cost of home care or facility care.

 

Benefits typically cover the cost of help in your home with activities like bathing, dressing, toileting and transfers, homemaker services, nursing care and rehabilitation in your home, as well as adult day care facilities, residential living facilities, hospice and nursing homes. Eligibility to start paying benefits is determined by benefit “triggers” described in each individual policy. The elimination period, like a deductible, must be fulfilled, during which time the policy holder is responsible for payment for services.

 

Typical long-term care policies provide either a benefit period or a lifetime benefit maximum. Benefits are different for each individual, depending on choices made when the policy was purchased. Benefits don’t always cover the entire expense; there is usually a daily benefit and an amount of total lifetime benefit.

 

SOME TERMS:

Elimination Period Number of days the insured must pay for their services before their benefits start.

 

Activities of Daily Living (ADL’s) Personal care tasks.
Power of Attorney (POA) Trusted person who is given decision making authority if insured is unable

 

Authorization of Benefits form (AOB) The AOB form is an instruction from the client for their long term care insurance company to send their benefits directly to the care-giving agency for payment of their services.

 

Daily Benefit Amount of benefit for each day of service.

 

It is very important to remember that the amount of long term care insurance benefits is different for each individual, even if they are covered by the same long term care insurance company. An individual purchases the amount of future benefit when the long term care insurance policy is purchased.

 

If you or a family member have long term care insurance and would like information on how it can be used for home care services, please call Diane Riley at Bayada Nurses, 303-333-2900.