As people age, their medical needs often increase. Many older adults eventually require in-home support from nursing professionals or a room in a nursing home during their last months of life. The cost of such support can be prohibitive.
An individual may not have enough in savings to cover the cost of long-term care. The most common solutions other than paying out of pocket include purchasing long-term care insurance and applying for Medicaid benefits. While long-term care insurance can be helpful in some cases, it is subject to limitations that people need to understand.
Coverage may include payment limits
Frequently, long-term care coverage only allows for a certain amount of financial support per month. Older adults may discover that the policies they have long carried do not fully cover their care expenses under current economic circumstances. They may then have to cover the gap between what their insurance pays and their actual care costs.
Premiums increase with age
The other critical limitation of long-term care insurance relates to its cost. The older an applicant is when they initially seek coverage, the more they may pay each month for their policy.
For those who are already well into their retirement, policy premiums can be prohibitively expensive. If people miss payments, they may lose their coverage. In cases where older adults find themselves scrambling to cover long-term care insurance premiums, planning to qualify for Medicaid may be a better option.
Sitting down to discuss possible future care needs can help older adults prepare for incapacity and increasing medical support needs as they age. Older adults may want to carry specialized insurance, change ownership of assets or even establish trusts to make long-term care accessible as they age.
