Yes. Purchasing long term care insurance before you need long term care can be an option to cover future nursing home costs. Like any insurance policy, you pay premiums over time before you need the services, to get coverage later. When and if you require LTC care, then the private insurance you’ve paid for kicks in to pay part of the cost. The important questions are (1) how much do I pay? And (2) how much coverage do I get?

Yes, private LTC insurance usually is expensive. According to a 2018 article by AARP, premiums for long term care policies average about $2,700 per year (around $225 per month). Typically, the earlier an insurance plan is purchased, the lower the premiums will be.

Therefore, as the AARP article says, “if you have difficulty paying your bills now …, spending thousands of dollars a year for a long term care policy might not make sense.” Another concern is whether the amount of coverage you can afford to buy today will be enough to really help with the actual cost by the time you need care somewhere in the future.

Medicare is available to two groups of people. First, any person who is age 65 or older. Second, anyone who has received Social Security Disability benefits for at least 25 months. There is no financial limit on eligibility for Medicare. Neither income nor assets are considered in determining Medicare eligibility.

Yes, but only for a short time. In general, a person can get Medicare contribution to nursing home costs for only 100 days in her lifetime. In addition, there are other special conditions must be met to get that limited coverage. The truth is that Congress designed Medicare to help with doctor bills, hospital bills, and recovering from injuries and illness. Congress did not design Medicare for “long term” care such as nursing homes.

For example, suppose you must go to a nursing home or “rehabilitation facility” as part of recovering from an injury or an illness. You’re not going to be there a long time, but only for a month or two. Medicare will provide coverage for this kind of nursing home cost.

If it turns out that you need to be in the nursing home for more than 3 months then Medicare coverage will “run out.” You’ll need to figure out other options for covering the nursing home costs after Medicare runs out.

Yes. Medicaid is the primary source of financial help in paying the tremendous costs of nursing home care. In West Virginia, Medicaid pays for half to two-thirds of all people in nursing homes. But the rules for eligibility for Medicaid coverage of long-term care costs are complicated and often difficult to navigate.

No way, not at all. We will try to cover some of the broad and frequent questions people have about coverage through Medicaid for long-term care. But the rules are far more complicated than we can explain in this kind of web page article.

Suppose you are not ready for nursing home care now, but it’s highly likely that you will need nursing care in the future. Get expert help and START PLANNING NOW! Talk with a lawyer who specializes in planning for Medicaid coverage for long-term care, especially if you have substantial savings and assets.