Home Health Care - Another Option for Your Long-Term Care Needs

You've decided that buying a long-term care policy for yourself and your spouse is the right choice. The figures, however, are daunting, and the premiums exceed your budget.

If you are considering long-term care insurance, the option to receive necessary assistance in your own home may be preferable to living in a nursing home. 

Because the vast majority of the middle-aged and senior population favors this option, the insurance industry has responded. The assisted living and home health care industry is growing along with the desire to receive care in your own home.

Most long-term care insurance providers are now offering the opportunity to purchase insurance that provides coverage for community health services and home health care at much lower rates than a full-blown, long-term care policy.

Coverage and cost comparisons

For example, using the guidelines of one A-rated provider, full coverage for a 55-year-old married couple, both in good health, with a $150-per-day policy featuring inflation protection and a 30-day waiting period, would require an annual premium of about $2,600. 

The same provider also offers a policy covering home health care and community care coverage for an annual premium of just under $1,000, a considerable saving over the full-coverage policy, while still offering protection for the most commonly required assistance.

While some policies will require the care to be offered by licensed providers, there are policies now available that also offer coverage for services performed by non-licensed personnel. This provides more flexibility and allows the policyholder to choose someone they trust to provide the care, such as a family friend or a neighbor.  

This raises the comfort level of the care provided, since allowing strangers into their home is something of which most seniors are wary.

In order to prevent fraud or abuse of the coverage, family members are excluded from providing services in most cases, unless the family member happens to be a licensed provider.

The takeaway

As the baby boomer population ages, home health services are seeing increased effectiveness and popularity;

the purchase of this type of coverage can be an affordable, attractive alternative to the more traditional long-term care insurance.