Health Can Change Quickly – When Should You Think About Long-Term Care?
When Should You Think About Long-Term Care?
Let me share two examples. The first is a couple in their late 40’s. Their financial planner strongly suggested investigating Long-Term Care (LTC) insurance to them a year ago and they said they are way too young and healthy to even consider it. Recently they agreed to let the planner bring me in to investigate and I learned that this past spring he had been diagnosed with atrial fibrillation – a condition that can lead to strokes. No LTC insurance company will offer him coverage with that diagnosis on his record, it’s simply not available to him ever again.
My second example is myself. A hard working, active 67 year old male who suddenly felt quite cold and feverish last week Monday while teaching a class at the university. I went home and piled on blankets until wife, thinking I might have flu suggested going in for Tamiflu. At the ER we were all surprised by blood pressure of 80 over 39 and nearly in shock with a massive staph infection. A week in the hospital with IV medications and another 2 weeks of outpatient IV medications will fix this. If my wife had let me sleep overnight to see what would happen, things could have turned out quite differently.
My point in these two examples is that health can change in an instant. You can be completely healthy and still at significant risk for death or disability.
I am often asked at what age a person should be concerned about planning for LTC. It’s not a chronological age, but the answer is when it is affordable, and likely to remain so. Planning in advance with LTC insurance is the least expensive way to deal with LTC. 70% of us are going to need such care according to Health and Human Services. Those are not good odds to gamble against.
You can ignore this concern, many people do. Then when care becomes necessary they burden their families and often end up spending all assets down to Medicaid impoverishment to qualify for government assistance.
If you have not prepared and are now faced with a LTC need for yourself or a loved one, we can help. There are some alternative payment sources that are not widely known. If the worst happens and Medicaid is needed, we can protect some of your money for family.
The best outcomes, the least expense, the happiest people are those who prepared for LTC with insurance – just like having an auto accident, insurance is required BEFORE the problem, it’s too late afterwards.
Most who do investigate this find the insurance costs less than they feared, if it is appropriately chosen. This is a specialized field and we have been doing nothing but the financing of LTC for the past 24 years.
For more information visit www.TheLongTermCareGuy.com or call us at (920) 884-3030 or (800) 219-9203. There is no cost to investigate with an expert.
