What Is Long Term Care?

Long term care is a kind of help one may need as a result of prolonged illness or disability. The way that a client could potentially collect benefits from an insurance carrier for Long term care is two ways. One is via physical impairment or by activities of daily living, commonly known as HDLs. There are six of them: eating, bathing, dressing, toileting, transferring, and continence.

If a client is to go on claim triggering two out of the six activities of daily living their medical professional writes what's called a 90 day certification letter that essentially says, my patient can no longer eat or bathe. That those are the two things that the client is having difficulty with. And they're not expected to get better for the next 90 days. The other way a client can potentially collect benefits from an insurance carrier for Long term care is via cognitive impairment. And there are four sub components to that orientation as to person place or time deductive or abstract reasoning judgment. As it relates to safety awareness or memory matters.

Many times a determination can be made by looking at the client's medical records or giving the client a standardized test. It's important for you to understand the role that health insurance may play in this circumstance versus Long term care health insurance, whether it's your private health insurance or Medicare, just to help you get better and use a skilled and rehabilitative care. And it's delivered when there's an expectation of improvement. It's delivered by someone that has a lot of training, a medical doctor, a physical therapist, a registered nurse, and they use things like IVs and tube feeding, all things delivered when there's an expectation of improvement.

Long term care is used when the client is in a chronic state and they're not going to get better. They use non-skilled care to help make the client more comfortable and help them get through each day. Think of your health insurance and Long term care as bookends. Your health insurance is going to help you get better. It's skilled and rehabilitative care. They're going to help you when there's an expectation of improvement. Long term care is used when you're in a circumstance where you're chronic and the client is not going to improve. It's non-skilled care that is delivered. So think of the two as bookends, very, very different.

They perform very, very different functions. Many have questions about where a client can receive care as it relates to Long term care, consider Long term care insurance. It's a continuum of care, housing and services that someone may need as a result of having lived a long life. And while the reputation of the product is that it's that nursing home stuff. The client actually can choose from four venues to get care depending upon how much help they need.

We find in our 20 years of experience that clients want to stay in the community they created, they want to stay at home and get home care. Perhaps they might use the services of adult daycare. If they need more assistance, they may need to move into assisted living. And usually the last stop in the continuum of care, housing and services is that of the nursing home. When they need more assistance.