Nursing Homes Offer A Variety of Strategies For Long Term Care
At some time in all of our lives we may be faced with the decision to send a loved one to long term care.
This is generally not a very pleasant situation as much hand wringing and worry go into the decision to take, what many consider, this extremely drastic step.
But it is done never the less almost every day in America.
This is mostly the end result of careful consideration of all the facts involved with the decision.
Generally care at either the loved ones home or at the caregivers home has been attempted first by the caregiver until the point is reached that continuing the care is impossible.
This can be for a variety of reasons.
The usual reasons given for this change of heart are that the caregiver doesn't have enough time, money or resources left to continue.
Once the decision is reached to seek outside help with nursing homes the next decision you are faced with is what type of facility to look for.
There are basically only two major types and those are privately owned and Medicaid facilities.
There are, however, a few sub types, which include continued care facilities, assisted living, and skilled nursing homes.
Mostly these subtypes are found on the private side as the public side only has Medicaid facilities, which are all full service skilled nursing or assisted living centers.
The cost for this kind of continuous care keeps going up.
Currently prices for private nursing homes can range from $200 a day to $300 a day and higher.
Medicaid facilities are better and can run from $180 a day and up.
Even though these amounts of money can be staggering there are many considerations to make before you can begin to choose.
One of the issues that is brought to the front when applying for a Medicare subsidized nursing facility for a loved one is a list of the loved one's assets.
They ask you for this information because before a Medicare recipient can qualify for assistance all liquid assets in the name of the person that is asking for qualification has to be spent down.
This means that a person trying to qualify for assistance can't have more than a few hundred dollars to their name before they can qualify.
This knowledge many times is quite a shocker for most people but unfortunately that's just the way it is.
If your family is wealthy this may still be a very sticky problem because some how you have to decide how you can get rid of or transfer assets out of the persons name so they can qualify for Medicare assistance.
There are alternate ways to plan for this.
Today a new genre of medical insurance has arisen designed to specifically address confinement in nursing homes.
This product is called long-term insurance.
This insurance is designed to pay the insured individual or their families a fixed dollar amount that is equivalent to the cost of a nursing care facility every month until the policyholder dies.
Payment is determined solely on health status and a clear diagnosis by a medical doctor of the need for interment in nursing homes.
The dollar amounts paid are chosen when making application and can range from about $120 a day to well over $300 a day.
Just the amounts needed for a long-term care facility.
Details of course vary from company to company.
This is generally not a very pleasant situation as much hand wringing and worry go into the decision to take, what many consider, this extremely drastic step.
But it is done never the less almost every day in America.
This is mostly the end result of careful consideration of all the facts involved with the decision.
Generally care at either the loved ones home or at the caregivers home has been attempted first by the caregiver until the point is reached that continuing the care is impossible.
This can be for a variety of reasons.
The usual reasons given for this change of heart are that the caregiver doesn't have enough time, money or resources left to continue.
Once the decision is reached to seek outside help with nursing homes the next decision you are faced with is what type of facility to look for.
There are basically only two major types and those are privately owned and Medicaid facilities.
There are, however, a few sub types, which include continued care facilities, assisted living, and skilled nursing homes.
Mostly these subtypes are found on the private side as the public side only has Medicaid facilities, which are all full service skilled nursing or assisted living centers.
The cost for this kind of continuous care keeps going up.
Currently prices for private nursing homes can range from $200 a day to $300 a day and higher.
Medicaid facilities are better and can run from $180 a day and up.
Even though these amounts of money can be staggering there are many considerations to make before you can begin to choose.
One of the issues that is brought to the front when applying for a Medicare subsidized nursing facility for a loved one is a list of the loved one's assets.
They ask you for this information because before a Medicare recipient can qualify for assistance all liquid assets in the name of the person that is asking for qualification has to be spent down.
This means that a person trying to qualify for assistance can't have more than a few hundred dollars to their name before they can qualify.
This knowledge many times is quite a shocker for most people but unfortunately that's just the way it is.
If your family is wealthy this may still be a very sticky problem because some how you have to decide how you can get rid of or transfer assets out of the persons name so they can qualify for Medicare assistance.
There are alternate ways to plan for this.
Today a new genre of medical insurance has arisen designed to specifically address confinement in nursing homes.
This product is called long-term insurance.
This insurance is designed to pay the insured individual or their families a fixed dollar amount that is equivalent to the cost of a nursing care facility every month until the policyholder dies.
Payment is determined solely on health status and a clear diagnosis by a medical doctor of the need for interment in nursing homes.
The dollar amounts paid are chosen when making application and can range from about $120 a day to well over $300 a day.
Just the amounts needed for a long-term care facility.
Details of course vary from company to company.
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