Hawaii Long Term Care
Long term care insurance may be the least understood of all products. Yet it is potentially one of the most useful insurance plans you can buy. After all, long term care insurance pays benefits for assistance the medically frail or elderly may need.
Buying long term care insurance is not all that difficult. It does require you to be healthy when you take on a policy. You will have to submit to a medical exam, take a questionnaire, submit medical records and your personal history as well. Comparing quotes from different insurance companies is the easy part.
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Learning what long term care insurance is and how it pertains to you is more important. Long term care is not necessarily for the elderly. People who are young can have strokes and need assistance in their daily care too. For that reason, as soon as you know about long term care insurance, you need to start shopping for it.
The other reason to start shopping when you are as young as possible is simple. Rates are a lot more affordable for long term care insurance than they are when you are older. Read the details on every policy offered to you because they are not all the same.
Some will provide more access to extra services and supplies that you would otherwise have to pay out of the main benefits.
Before you throw up your hands out of frustration with the prospect of having to buy another insurance product, consider this. Did you know that according to statistics, nearly 50 percent of the population will need long term care at some point in their lives.
The costs of coverage vary vastly. In 2002, at-home care started at approximately 12,000 dollars per year and costs capped out at approximately 56,000 dollars for skilled care. As of 2014, that latter value has risen to 70,000 dollars per year for in-home skilled care.
Beyond inflation, the population of elderly is increasing tremendously as baby boomers age. This causes further strain on an already short-handed home health aide workforce.
Options for Long Term Care
Keeping it all in the family is the way some households prefer. Though, for many, the care a loved one requires outgrows home care. Take for instance, people who develop Alzheimer's. It is a degenerative disease that starts out simply as forgetting details and progresses further to an inability to remember how to perform simple tasks.
What scares most families is if their loved one wanders off and cannot find their way home. It is dangerous and depending on family circumstances, may be too much for the family to tolerate. That's when you may decide a family member needs full-time monitoring in a special Alzheimer's care facility.
They will feed, dress, monitor and care for the special medical and safety needs of a loved one for you. Another factor many take into account is that they may be unable to care for a loved one because they too are progressively weaker, say due to illness and, or age.
Different Types of Facilities
- Adult Day Care
- In Home Care
- Assisted Living
- Nursing Home
- Retirement Home with full spectrum of care services
- Skilled Nursing Center
The Hawaii Long Term Care Association provides a wide array of resources for you to read up on long term care. The organization covers the many types of in-community and in-home care.
Who decides where you go?
You might be wondering if you just one day decide it is time to take up residence in the skilled nursing center, and that is where you will spend your remaining life. It does not quite work that way.
It could be a permanent or short-term necessity for long term care. Long term care extends beyond medical care and enters something called Activities of Daily Living, or ADLs. An inability to perform such activities determines eligibility to use long term care benefits.
If your elderly mother breaks her hip and needs a hip replacement, the doctor or social worker might suggest a home health aide assist her until she gets back on her feet. If she is also suffering from diabetes and quickly declining mental health, then they will note that she needs help with medication management too.
Depending upon your mental ability to understand, you may have a hand in deciding where you go. Otherwise, other designated family members may act on your behalf and work out a plan with your doctors and a hospital case worker.
The case worker might broach the topic of hospice for end-stage terminally ill cancer patients, for instance. Yes, long term care insurance covers hospice care too.
Planning Ahead
Many seniors plan ahead by buying into an independent senior living community, where they live among a senior population. They live independently, but have the additional option and convenience of prepared meals, help shopping, cleaning and even with medication management if they need it.
Some such communities have skilled nursing facilities or relationships with more hands-on care, for those who need to make such a transition. They might also offer help getting to and from doctors appointments and the hospital.
Additional Funding
The idea is to plan ahead for the unexpected. Picture the type of care you want for different stages of life and varying degrees of health and illness. Take into account how much the long term care actually costs every year.
When requesting quotes for long term care insurance, consider the setting and quality of care you would want. Allow for worst case scenarios too. Decide if you can afford such policies. If not, look at your savings, life insurance policies and around your family for people who might want to pitch in on care.
In some families, everyone pitches in on a loved one's care. In other families that is not an option. In home care can be less costly in some cases. In others, it might cost more than a local assisted living center.
If you do find that the premiums are still too high, look at other opportunities to subsidize the costs of your care. For instance, life insurance policies that have a cash value are an option. You can tap into those policies for any reason of your choosing.
Other types of investment-related life insurance policies allow you to cash in the death benefit for long term care.
These are all ways to make up any shortfalls to your care. The idea is that you might just outlive long term care. Many people do. Then the idea is that you do not want to have to sell off your house, liquidate retirement savings and other drastic measures to fund something that is temporary.
Reducing Costs of Long Term Care Insurance
Face it, you still need a long term care policy, but you need to cut down on the price. Take a stab at increasing the waiting period before your long term care kicks into effect.
The length of time, or number of years, that your coverage will pay also impacts premium rates. Buying a policy at a younger age means lower premiums, also. Though, people typically purchase long term care insurance in their early fifties.
Buy the inflation rider, because costs go up. What this does is adjusts your policy limits to keep pace with inflation. You will receive a daily benefit. Care outside the home is typically cheaper than in-home care. Basically, take the daily cost of care and buy at least anywhere from two to five years of coverage. That's typically how long people require long term care.
Buying long term care insurance is not fun. It is meant to protect you in case you need anything from adult day care to help taking medication or full-time Alzheimer's care. Shopping around for the right policy for you can save money and make sure you get the care you want.
Be sure to always compare rates using our FREE search tool below!