Extended Care

Learn more about what choices you have as you consider extended care for you and
your family.

Nobody likes the thought of not being able to care for themselves anymore due to
injury, illness, or growing older. However, the time may come when you need help
performing routine, daily tasks. If that time comes, you will probably want things like
convenience, reputation, kindness, cleanliness, etc. to be the reason you choose a
provider – not cost. The ugly truth is that the cost of those services is expensive, and
they keep rising.

Long Term Care generally refers to assistance in performing activities of daily living
(ADLs). Those ADLs include bathing (the ability to clean oneself and perform grooming
activities like shaving and brushing teeth), dressing (the ability to get dressed by oneself
without struggling with buttons and zippers), eating (the ability to feed oneself),
transferring (being able to either walk or move oneself from a bed to a wheelchair and
back again), toileting (the ability to get on and off the toilet), and continence (the ability
to control one’s bladder and bowel functions).

Paying for care – If you find yourself in need of this care and the assistance required isn’t
covered by your health insurance or Medicare, then it can be a very large expense,
whether you receive the care at home or in a nursing home or assisted living facility.
Family and friends could help with some of the needs like transportation, preparing
your meals, and helping around the house. However, it can become quite a burden on
them, and there may be times in which they can’t help.

You can use your assets to pay the cost of care. Based on the cost of the care,
and the amount of assets you have, you will need to determine how long the assets will
last while paying for the care.

If you meet your state’s eligibility requirements (in many cases this means that you have
no assets left and have very minimal income) you may qualify for the state Medicaid
program. You should contact your local Medicaid office for details on qualification.

You also have the option to have insurance to cover the cost of long-term care. In
addition to traditional long-term care insurance policies, some life insurance policies
also provide the option to use benefits early to pay for care.