2 Misconception About Long-Term Care
With retirement come so many questions and uncertainties: how long will we live, what if I gain a disability, and what if I require professional medical care at home or need to be at a nursing home? Unfortunately there is a lack of awareness about the risk of long-term care.
- Misconception 1: Very few people are using long-term care. A study by researchers from the National Bureau of Economic Research actually estimates that a 50-year old individual has a 53-59% chance of entering a nursing home during their lifetime
- Misconception 2: Medicare pays for all long-term care needs
- Medicare will cover some part of nursing home expense for about up to 100 days, however that is in a skilled nursing facility and the nursing home stay must be preceded by a hospital day of more than three days consecutively
Custodial care – which is the nonmedical care that provides support for daily activities such as eating, bathing, and dressing – is actually not covered by Medicare. Custodial care is also the more common form of long-term care provided by nursing homes.
Medicaid however, does pay for such care. Yet, all families must exhaust almost all of their income and assets to qualify. Medicaid is basically the long-term care coverage that is a last resort for families or individuals with no assets whatsoever.
In short, long-term care costs are extremely expensive. A solution for those who want to protect their assets from the risk of losing them to long-term care cost is getting long-term care insurance.
