Long-Term Home Care Insurance

The number of people 65 years and older is expected to increase by 49.8 million between the years 2008 and 2050 as average lifespans reach the 90-year mark, according to a January 2010 article in "U. S. News & World Report." Long-term home care insurance provides a way for aging seniors to cover the costs of non-medically related care at home, though finding adequate coverage for these services may require a little research. (See Reference 7)

Medicare Insurance Coverage

• Anyone who has worked in the workforce for a minimum of 10 years automatically becomes eligible for Medicare health insurance coverage at the age of retirement, be it 65 or 67 years old. Medicare insurance provides coverage for hospital and medical care needs, meaning any services deemed medically necessary are covered under Medicare. Long-term home care services may include medically necessary as well as custodial care services. Custodial services, such as dressing, bathing and cooking, fall outside of the medically-necessary category, but are nonetheless needed in some cases. Medicare insurance does cover custodial services for limited periods of time in cases where a person is recovering from surgery or an injury.

Medigap Insurance Plans

• Medigap insurance plans work alongside Medicare coverage by filling in existing coverage gaps left by Medicare insurance. Medigap plans come in 12 different varieties, labeled A through L, with each one filling different types of gaps left by Medicare coverage. Plans B through J provide some coverage for long-term home care services, though for limited time periods. Since Medigap plans work in conjunction with Medicare, these plans will only pay for services that are approved by Medicare. In effect, any long-term care benefits must also be medically necessary and ordered by a physician. Medigap plans D, G, I and J do provide extended long-term home care coverage for up to eight weeks after medically necessary care has stopped.

The CLASS Act

• The Community Living Assistance Services and Support Act --- also known as the CLASS Act --- was developed as a part of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010 as a means of providing long-term home care insurance coverage for working citizens. This is a federally sponsored form of long-term care insurance available on a voluntary basis. Through payroll contributions, people who pay into the plan for five years or more become eligible for long-term home care benefits that cover custodial care services. Through the CLASS Act, eligible participants receive a minimum of $50 a day in cash benefits that cover services not provided through Medicare, according to Leading Age, a retirement services resource site. Benefit amounts are based on a payment scale that tracks the number of years a person pays into the plan and the total amount of payroll contributions made.

State Partnership Agreements

• People who purchase long-term home care insurance may encounter unexpected medical costs that exhaust their long-term care policy's benefits. State partnership agreements represent a partnership between state Medicaid programs and long-term care insurance companies. Through these partnerships, people who have exhausted their long-term care benefits can obtain Medicaid coverage without having to meet Medicaid's standard asset and resource requirements. Medicaid's standard requirements place limits on the amount of assets and resources a person can have in order to be eligible for long-term care coverage. State partnership policies have a Medicaid Asset Protection provision that allows participants to keep a larger portion of their assets and resources that Medicaid allows for.