Advance Health Care Decisions

Powers of Attorney

Wills, Trusts, Estates

Guardianships

Medicare, Health Insurance

Medicaid in Nursing Homes

Long Term Care Financing

Social Security

Income Assistance

Nursing Home Issues

Other Consumer Issues:

Other Provisions

These are extras only; do not overlook more important features.

1. Advice/counseling for someone in need of care. This can be helpful but is sometimes provided by someone under contract with the insurance company, who may be more interested in serving the company’s interests than yours.
2. Bed reservation benefit, to hold your nursing home bed until your return if you must be temporarily hospitalized.
3. Respite care benefit that pays for a substitute caregiver while yours takes a break.
4. Waiver of premium benefit that pays the premiums once you are in a facility. Some companies waive the premium once you are in a facility, most impose a waiting period of 60-90 days.
5. Lapse provisions: Elderly people may let policies lapse because the premiums have become burdensome or because they simply forget to pay the premium. Some companies will send notice of a missed premium to a third party; some allow a longer grace period; others permit reinstatement after five months if non- payment resulted from cognitive impairment.

New provisions are coming along as the concept of long term care insurance becomes more common. Non-forfeiture provisions allow a person who can no longer pay premiums to receive some benefit from a policy, perhaps by applying the amount of premiums paid to costs of care as long as they last. These provisions add 20-50% to the premiums.

Recently the Federal Employees Retirement program began offering more affordable long term care insurance to government employees. Other large government employers, including Retirement System of Alabama, are doing the same. As these large numbers of employees begin to buy coverage the pool of covered persons may become large enough to decrease costs and improve coverage.

Alabama Medicaid permits those who have long-term care policies that pay for at least three years of care to shield assets from spend-down to the extent that insurance has paid for care, and still qualify for assistance. This is a fairly new provision and it is not clear how it will be applied, but it could be an incentive to purchase insurance, especially for someone likely to experience a stay of several years in a nursing facility.

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