Preparing your future health care needs entails more than just the right amount of financial resources. You will definitely need the right long term care resources, too.
Finding the right resources for your long term care (LTC) needs simply requires commonsense. For example, two families in your neighborhood happen to be acquiring LTC services for their elderly loved ones. One family is relying on Medicaid for the needs of their 82-year-old dad while the children in the other family don’t have much to worry about because their 78-year-old father’s nursing home expenses are covered by his long term care insurance (LTCI) policy.
When you had the opportunity to speak with both families, in separate occasions, the kids of the 82-year-old dad said they regret putting their father in a nursing home because he does not receive the quality of care that he needs, considering the level of his Alzheimer’s. According to them, mediocre is too much a word to use in describing the service that is being provided to their father.
When it came to the members of the other family, all they have are praises for the nursing home that is responsible for taking care of their 78-year-old father who is diabetic. According to them, the nurse assigned to their father comes in to check on him on a regular basis. Since their father has dietary restrictions, his nurse sees to it that their father only eats what the doctor has strictly recommended.
Speaking to both families is one way of weighing your LTC resources already. Are you believe what the kids of the 82-year-old man said about nursing home care or the testimony of the 78-year-old senior’s children?
They view nursing homes from different perspectives because their fathers are receiving care in two different types of nursing homes. The first is in a nursing home which receives Medicaid payments while the latter is in a more sophisticated nursing home which is stable enough to afford to hire more workers to monitor its residents.
Comparing Your Long Term Care Resources
There may be countless nursing homes accepting Medicaid patients but not all of them are capable of providing topnotch services because of various reasons.
Most Medicaid-certified nursing homes are currently experiencing scarcity in employees as their nurses have decided to resign since the reduction in Medicaid’s reimbursement rates was imposed. According to these nurses they’re spending very long hours at work and getting so little in compensation, so they’d rather have a job that offers a fair wage.
If you think you or a loved one will need nursing home care anytime in the future, plan your would-be expenses meticulously. Being too complacent with the current cost of care will get you into trouble as this is expected to double in 2025 and quadruple in 2030. You better be earning a million dollars when that time comes because if that is far from happening, forget about self-insuring and start looking at your other options such as LTCI policies, reverse mortgages, annuities, and hybrid life insurance policies with LTC riders.
Don’t expect LTC to be affordable in the next 30 to 40 years because the only direction it’s headed is upwards. Study your long term care resources and study them well to avoid falling into the financial hole because it’s going to take a miracle to get you out.
Learn practical ways to minimize the cost of long term care plans. Visit our website to request free long term care quotes from top LTCi companies.