Texas Long Term Care Insurance
66Long Term Care Insurance in Texas
Long-term care insurance is designed to help pay for an individual’s long-term care expenses. If you are beginning to investigate long term care insurance in Texas, you may want to read this overview.
Long term care is help given to individuals to assist them with daily living skills such as bathing, dressing, or eating. Individual of all ages can qualify for long term care. An accident, illness, head trauma or cognitive impairment like dementia, could happen to any of us, at any time in our lives. Typically, the needs of long term care increase with age.
Long Term Care Insurance Basics
There are basically two types of long term care: skilled care and personal care. Skilled cared is service administered by a medical professional person such as a nurse or therapist. Personal care is a service given to help an individual continue normal daily living activities for as long as possible. This is given by a non professional person such as caregiver, assistants and helpers.
LTC policies have different criteria or triggers you must meet before the insurance company pays for your claims. It is based on your need for assistance with bathing, eating, dressing, using a bathroom, moving and continence. Usually, you have to have a need for at least 2 of these in order to receive coverage.
A policy may pay different amounts for different types of long-term care services. It is important that you understand how much coverage you will have and what type of services you will receive. Insurance benefits are usually paid by the day, week or month. When applying for a long term care insurance policy, you have to decide on these amounts:
- the daily amount of money to pay for your care
- the maximum benefit period in terms of days, months or even years you will receive care under your policy
- the elimination period or how long (days, months) can you afford to pay
out-of-pocket before your policy kicks in
Costs of Long Term Care (LTC) and Insurance
The costs of long term care varies greatly depending on where care is provided. It makes sense that care given at a nursing home would be more expensive than care provided in an individual's home. In fact,the national average cost of a nursing home room is over $70,000 per year as compared to the average cost of home care being $39,000. In Texas, the average costs are:
- $3,000 per month to live in an assisted living center
- $190 per day for a private room in a nursing home
- $40 a day for adult day care
- $20 a day for a home health aide
How much does long term care insurance really cost? Well it depends on many factors; including:
- Your Age
- Your Health
- Elimination period
- Does the policy have inflation protection
- Benefit amount
- How long the benefit is to be paid
- The types of care covered
- Where you live
- Whether you use pre-tax dollars
- Whether your state offers Partnership Policies
There are ways to reduce the cost of long term care.
Why Should You Get Long Term Care Insurance?
Long term care insurance makes sense if you have assets to protect, other than your home or car. These assets would have to be significant to offset LTC insurance premium costs. You also need figure out if you can afford the premiums now, while you are still working or in retirement. Not only should you think about your assets, but also your particular risk factors. For example, if you are a woman, you have a greater "risk" of needing LTC than a man because you generally live a few years longer. Other factors include family health history and life expectancy. Agents are required to provide you with a worksheet and list of things you should consider before you buy.
Tax Deductions
29 states and the District of Columbia, now have state income tax credits or deductions for those paying on long term care insurance. Check to see if you can deduct part of the premium you pay for a long term care policy as a medical expense. Your out-of-pocket medical expenses must be more than 7.5 percent of your gross income.
Long Term Partnership Program
Texas is among 39 states that have a Long Term Partnership Program. This program allows you to keep assets and still allow you to qualify for Medicaid if you need it. How? Simply put, this a "dollar-for-dollar" program allows for every dollar that your long term care partnership policy pays out in benefits, you to keep a dollar of your hard earned assets if you need to apply for Medicaid.
Inflation Protection
Long term care costs are going to increase every year. So inflation protection built into your policy is a good idea. It will help you keep up with the increasing costs of care from the time you buy your policy to the time you need to use it.
Individuals can buy long term health insurance a number of different ways:
•As an individual
•As a member of a group or faith-based organization
•As an employee or family member of an employee
•Some life insurance policies or annuities have long term care insurance as a rider
Long-term care insurance policies are not standardized like Medicare Supplement plans. Be thorough when shopping for long-term care coverage. Long term care insurance protects your assets and help you to maintain independence and a quality of life. Think about it now, versus later.
Start by getting several quotes now . Its fast, free and you are under no obligation to buy.
Related articles by Jim Westin:
http://jimwestin.hubpages.com/hub/Common-Misunderstanding-on-Long-Term-Care-Insurance
