The specific services are not important. The insurance company will pay benefits directly to the individual, up to the limit of the policy. It is vital that there is an understanding as to what services the policy covers and how it applies to nursing home care, home health care, personal care in the home, services in assisted living facilities, services in adult day care centers, and services in other community facilities. The practitioner must know where the services are covered, as well, points out Rudolf. Cohen cautions that nobody really wants to go to a nursing home if they can be in their own house.
Independence is what the elder person craves most.
He says that many people buy LTCI so that someone can come and take care of them. Melissa Gannon, a senior researcher at Weiss Ratings in Palm Beach Gardens, Fla., a company that evaluates financial strength of insurance companies, notes that LTCI is really buying coverage against a catastrophe. She has said that only about 10 percent of people now in their 60s will ever need long-term care which is a fact based on information from the National Center for Health Statistics. Even for people who reach their 80s, the figure is less than half. However, the same study reported that among people who live to age 65, only one in three will spend three months or more in a nursing home and about one in four will spend one year or more in a nursing home.