What To Do About Long Term Care

Well, the first thing that we do is we try to take as much time as we can with people to get their questions answered. Not everybody needs to do something about this, but we believe in our company that everybody needs to understand what longterm care is and perhaps more importantly, what it isn't. We have a system that we give folks that are trying to understand this more and we have, what I've been told, is a pretty comprehensive website. We find that a combination of people looking at our written materials and our website and interacting with us, helps them get to the destination of wherever it is they have to get around the subject of longterm care, including not doing anything. If somebody wants our help, we need to take the time to understand their ten year medical history, their ten year surgical history and medications that they've taken or are taking.

It isn't widely understood that on the open market that people have to health qualify to get the coverage. We have an algorithm that we send to people that helps us help them and helps us take them to the carrier that's most amenable to their medical history. Now, if a client doesn't have any medical history, they're going to have a lot of options, but if they do have medical history, it almost can beget a second set of strategies to find a carrier that is most amenable to their circumstances. So the book helps them understand the process of securing longterm care and the high points of why somebody might consider this. There's a number of bullet points outlined on the LTC PG or the long term care planning group planning process page that talks about some of the concepts that people may entertain when trying to understand what to do about this.

The second page of the process document talks about the potential steps that could occur in underwriting. The first step is we have to understand a client's medical history so that we take them to the carrier that is most amenable to their medical history. Once a formal application is submitted on behalf of a client, there may be multiple steps that occur. After a carrier formally reviews the application they may order additional information. The first and one of the most common next steps might be securing the client's medical records or attending physician statement also referred to as an A P S. The second thing that's pretty common with people that are being underwritten for longterm care is to undergo a phone interview. The carrier is going to want to make sure that the client meets their standards for cognition as it relates to cognitive impairment and to make sure that there are no memory matters or anything like that.

Another next step that could be evolved is a paramed where the carrier sends a representative to the client's home or business to take blood or urine and ask them medical related questions to verify what's in the medical history or what's on the application. Those three things are fairly common. Sometimes they're all three required. Sometimes not. It depends on each case. We update clients as the carrier updates us on their medical history so they're fully in the loop and they're clear on what the next steps. We also have our paraplanner visit clients and make sure that they understand directly the next steps that are involved in the underwriting process with that carrier. I think a good place to start is just, you know, set up a phone call with us. And so we can help you get your questions answered. People can get in contact with us by emailing me at corey@thelongtermcareplanninggroup.com or contacting me directly it's (678) 814-5088.

They may also visit our website at www.thelongtermcareplanninggroup.com. When we're sitting down with a client, or we're taking a phone call with them to help them get their questions answered about longterm care, a common next step to support their learning would be to send them a copy electronically, a digital copy of our longterm care learning system. So in it, there is our longterm care planning process. There is our 10 frequently asked questions. There is the main planning metrics of longterm care along with a survey done by Genworth from 2019, that talks about the costs of care because they have studied 10 to 12 major cities in every state in the United States. They have studied the hourly cost of home care. They've studied the cost of assisted living, and they've studied the daily cost of adult daycare. They've studied the monthly cost of assisted living, and also the daily costs associated with a semi-private and a private room in a nursing home.

So this tool is available to everybody and can help people get clarity around what the potential costs of care are for their area that they're living in now and where they may be living when in fact they need the care itself. One of the most important parts of our process is after we've helped somebody get their questions answered with an LTC consult where they talk to one of us live, or they've gone to our website, or they have our longterm care learning system is if they want our assistance to really get to understand, fully, their health, we have a 10 page document called the LTC executive application. This document, the questions that carriers want to know the answers to. Where it becomes extremely helpful is if somebody has medical history, this helps our organization guide further that client in taking them to a carrier that is most amenable to their medical history.

Now, if a client doesn't have any medical history, they have a lot of options medical wise with the longterm care carriers. Keep in mind the longterm care carriers are individually underwriting people on the open market that want to pursue this on their own. The carriers have to be clear about their ten year medical history, the client's ten year surgical history and medications that the client is taking or has taken. We find that this way, this document helps us gather that information and helps us be a further service to the client. We want to make sure that we can help the client before we actually start helping them. If we cannot help them, we let them know early on because of the history, because of the document that they've completed, that we're not able to help them. It also provides a path for us to take them to the right carrier in the LTC carrier marketplace.