What Are The Main Ways To Pay For Long Term Care?
Long term care is obviously very expensive. Private insurance, meaning the person’s private medical insurance, will obviously not cover long term care costs and custodial care, custodial care will mean either nursing home care or in-home care with an aide.
Private Medical Insurance Will Not Cover Long Term Care
Private medical insurance does not cover custodial care; the individual will then have to apply for Medicaid, meaning they have to qualify for the Medicaid program. In order to qualify, they have to do the proper planning and meet certain threshold limitations on their assets and income levels.
An Elder Law Attorney Is The Proper Person to Help You Qualify For and Apply for Medicaid
I am obviously able to help someone qualify for the Medicaid program so that those long term care costs can be paid for by the federal program and not by their private assets. This is why proactive planning is important.
An individual may not qualify for Medicaid for whatever reason, but will fail specifically if they have not done the proper planning and were over-resourced. In that case they will ultimately have to use their own private assets to pay for the care.
This means they have to use their private assets including real estate, home, cash, CDs, stocks, bonds, mutual funds, annuities and so on and so forth, with the exception of any qualified IRA or 401(k) plans.
These are the two predominant ways an individual will have to pay for their long term care; whereas the third possibility is if they are lucky enough to have something called private long term care insurance which usually will not even cover the entire cost of the care.
It Is Important To Have Elder Care Planning Done Long Before It Is Actually Needed
Unfortunately, most people who come through my doors do not have long term care insurance. Securing this type of insurance is very expensive. The individual would have to get underwriting for it, meaning they would have to qualify for it and they would have had to gotten the policy when they were much younger and healthy.
Most people who are on their way into a nursing home or who are elderly, will not be able to qualify, and even if they did, it is extremely expensive, which is why most people who come to me usually do not have it.
Additionally, even if they are lucky enough to have purchased the insurance many years ago when they were much younger, the fact is, a lot of those policies do not necessarily cover a full portion of the nursing home care.
The average cost per day in a nursing home is generally about $550 a day; whereas most of the policies I see, which are very far and few between, usually do not cover anything more than around $200 a day.
There is still a very large shortfall, which will ultimately have to be paid by the individual’s private assets. The better option, obviously, is to have done the proper planning and qualify for Medicaid to cover the cost by having a Medicaid assets protection trust in place long before ever having the need to go into a nursing home.
Get your questions answered - call me for your free phone consultation (718) 475-9639
Medicare Does Not Cover The Cost Of Long Term Care
Medicare does not cover the cost of what is known as “custodial care”. Medicare is a federal program that exists for individuals to pay for medical care, meaning doctors’ visits, surgery, medication and so on and so forth, but that would not include custodial care or nursing home care.
Medicare only provides limited rehabilitation services in a nursing home if a person comes from a hospital and is in need of short term rehab and it only covers 80% for the first 100 days.
In the event the individual needs to be institutionalized in a nursing home longer than 100 days. That person will need to private pay the high cost of the nursing home or must qualify for Medicaid.
Many times a week I get the panicked call from a shocked potential client who explains that the nursing home has explained to them that their loved one will no longer be entitled to rehab through Medicare and that they now need to be placed into the facility long term and that they have to private pay or qualify for Medicaid.
This is why they need to have done the proper elder care planning well in advance. A family member needs to be proactive and should come and consult with my office 5 years in advance of needing that care. However, if they did not they should immediately consult with me as soon as the family member enters the nursing home, they should not wait until they get the bad news from the nursing home 3 months later at the last minute when Medicare is running out.
Contacting an elder law lawyer at the right time is the best thing to do. Our elder law lawyers are well equipped with all the information and know how to deal with Medicaid. We have been helping clients all over New York for over a decade now. Our elder law lawyers and elder law attorneys can be easily reached for a FREE Initial Consultation. Our offices are located in Staten Island, New York, Brooklyn, Bronx, White Plains, Garden City, Melville, NY and we can provide legal representation in Manhattan, White Plains, Bronx, Long Island, Staten Island, Brooklyn, and Queens, New York.
The individual will obviously need the proper guidance and legal advice in order to protect their assets if possible, plan properly, and then apply for Medicaid in order to be successfully accepted into the Medicaid program without spending down some or all of their private assets.
For more information on How To Pay For Long Term Nursing Care, a free initial consultation is your next best step. Get the information and legal answers you’re seeking by calling (718) 475-9639 today.
Get your questions answered - call me for your free phone consultation (718) 475-9639
