Does one have to keep up the payments for the insurance when in whatever the facility is?
I'm not interested for myself, just wondering; trying to picture making the payments at 90...
Excellent links, Phoenix. There is conflicting advice, though. Consumer reports says don't buy before 65 unless you have a cronic illness, like diabetes. The last on, by Terry Savage, says buy in your early 50s while you are still healthy. This is a toughy.
Swimpy- Again, it all has to do with a person's particular circumstances. After all, you don't know if you will EVER need long term care. A person is betting that he/she will.
Another thing. At 53, the premiums will be relatively cheap. At 65, it goes up. No one knows whether a person, for instance, might contract an illness, or sustain an injury in his 50s or early 60s, that would render him ineligible for the insurance later on.
Each person need to decide for himself whether to buy the insurance early, wait until he is older, or not bother with it at all.
From the Consumer Reports link:
Quote:Consider buying at around age 65. Although salespeople will try to get you to buy a policy as young as age 40, the coverage may be useless 40 years hence when you need it. New systems for care may emerge that will not be covered by a policy purchased today. For example, 15 years ago, long-term-care insurance did not pay for care in assisted-living facilities.
Between the ages of 55 and 60, buy long-term-care insurance only if you have a chronic condition like diabetes that could prove incapacitating over time. Otherwise, begin at about age 60 to assess whether you need long-term-care coverage, and, if so, buy at age 65. If you buy later than age 70, the policy will likely be too expensive or you may not pass the medical tests needed to qualify.
In my case, I'm healthy. I have no chronic illness, don't smoke and am relatively active. I would like to lock in lower premiums, but I also want to make sure that the policy I buy now will not be useless when I need it. Much research is needed. I also have an inherent distruct of insurance companies. At least at my age I can take my time and learn all he facts.
Yea, thanks. I saw that one. Actually, it's the only one I've looked at so far. I like the flexibility and Met Life has been around forever.
Have you considered LTC for yourself, Phoenix?
Swimpy- A number of years ago, I looked into it. One of the questions that I was asked was whether I had been treated for cancer in the last 5 years. At the time, I was ten years in remission. I figured that I would tell them anyway, so that I would not have any surprises if the time came when I needed to collect.
The company (I can't remember which one,) offered to insure me, but only for nursing home and not home care. I figured that it was more likely that I would want home care when I got older, so I passed it up.
Now this thread has piqued my interest in long term care again.
I think home care is covered under more policies now. I don't want to go to a nursing home unless I have to. The policies I've seen so far (basically the AARP ones) will pay 50% on home health care up to a month benefit max.
One big factor is inflation protection. One of the articles talked about compounded inflation protection. I need to read some more about that.
I can't quote chapter and verse, but I believe home care is much cheaper for the insurance company than residence in a nursing home.
Noddy- Before I relocated my mom into the ALF, I checked with some home care companies. They wanted around $17- per hour. That's over a thousand bucks a month for only two hours of service a day.
There are local women who do home care on their own for a lot less money, but I would not have been comfortable with that sort of arrangement.
Anyhow, when I was going through the process of looking around, I realized that my mom needed a lot more than 2 hours a day care!
LTC insurance will only pay for home care for state licensed or certified home health care provider. And your right, Phoenix, home health care is expensive.
*****WARNING******
This is a rant, and is meant as a catharsis for me. If you don't want to hear about it, stop right here.
Last Thursday, I took my 96 year old mother to the doctor because she had a nasty infection on her arm. The doctor prescribed a series of antibiotics.
This morning I wanted to go to Sam's Club. It is about 20 minutes from my house. Since I have a business card, and can shop between 7-10 AM, I wanted to get there early, before the place got like a zoo.
Anyhow, I am tooling down the highway, at about 8 AM, and am about 5 minutes away from the store. All of a sudden my cell phone rings. It's the women from my mother's ALF. Apparently, my mother's arm has gotten very hard, and she is complaining about the pain. Since she was recently operated on for a clot in her other arm. the woman from the ALF wasn't taking any chances.
I make a "U" turn, and go back to my mother's ALF. Her arm looks definitely better, nowhere near as red, and she insists that it really does not hurt, "that much". I am still concerned, so I call the doctor, and make an appointment for 10:30 AM.
I get to the doctor, after waiting for quite a while. Although her blood oxygen is well within normal limits, he claims that he hears a little fluid in her left lung. She has CHF. He suggests that I go to the ER, to have things checked out. On top of everything, my mother has her head on her shoulder, and is barely responsive. She claims to feel "the sickest that she has ever felt in her entire life", and describes it as her "head feeling like a balloon". (I have heard that one before, many many times.)
I take her to the ER. The triage nurse is a perky young thing. Within minutes, my mother has snapped out of her stupor, and is kibitzing with the nurse.
The ER is like a zoo. We get her right into a room, but wait and wait for a doctor. They have her hooked up to monitors. No exaggerating, she wants to go to the bathroom at least every fifteen minutes.
We waited until almost 5pm for a doctor to see her. In the meantime, she is starving. I get her something, but she does not want it. Every five minutes she asks me if I want some of the food. I say no, and she keeps asking, until I want to scream.
The doctor orders an ultrasound of her hand, blood work, and a chest XRay. They all come out fine. For some strange reason, the doctor who ordered the tests leaves, without dictating the discharge orders.
To make a long story short, I did not get out of there untl after 7pm. I take her to the ALF, and tell the staff the story. All of a sudden my mother exclaims that her watch is missing. Since the watch was on the hand where she took the ultrasound, I figure that the techs took it off, and forgot to return it.
WE call the hospital. The ultrasound department is closed until 7AM tomorrow. I go back to her room to tell her..........................................................She opens her drawer, and there is the watch. She must have taken it off, and forgot that she had.
I did not get home until 8:30 PM
I am going to Sam's tomorrow, come hell or high water!!!!!
Phoenix--
May tomorrow be a day without detours. I've heard for years that Florida has excellent medical care for the elderly, but recently I've been hearing about the not-so-excellent waits.
Enjoy Sam's club. Hold your dominion.
eeeyikes! Phoenix, you deserve some sort of award.
I guess I don't get why the doctor sent her to the ER. Strange to me.
The shunting of this kind of thing to ERs is so against my admittedly in the past sense of things. ER to do diagnostics for the md in practice?
Osso- I think that it has something to do with the fact that my mother is on an HMO. If her doctor sent her for tests at a free standing imaging place, and there was a problem, he would have to admit her to the hospital.
HMOs don't like doctors who request a lot of extra services. Often, what a doctor is paid is assessed by how well he keeps costs down. By sending my mother, (and everyone else's mother in my town)to the ER, it would be the ER doc who would do the admitting. So the primary doctor is using the ER as a way of making more money.
I think that I am going to switch my mom this year to regular Medicare with a Medigap and a drug plan. The stop-loss on her HMO is up 50% over 2005. The way that I figure it, at the rate that she is using medical services at her age, there is no benefit for her to have an HMO!
