Connecticut Partnership for Long-Term Care
Long Term Care is assistance you may need to manage your health care in the future. Many of the health challenges we face as we age do not have treatments that cure them, rather they need to be managed so that we can live our lives with as much control over the services we need and the settings in which services are provided, as possible. Many people assume that long term care is fully paid for by Medicare and employer provided benefits. This is an incorrect assumption that can lead to significant financial problems and an inability to receive the types and quantity of service needed to achieve the long-term care desired.
Medicare has some time-limited long-term care benefits and employer provided benefits run the gamut of benefits available, but none of them provide unlimited benefits for long-term care. An essential factor to remember is that the emphasis on LONG. When benefits are provided through health insurance programs, they tend to be short term benefits or only apply when post hospital benefits are needed that require skilled nursing level of care. Most long-term care needs are not skilled level needs, but rather chronic care needs. If you need assistance getting into the bathroom for daily wash up, due to a chronic condition such as degenerative arthritis, you will not suddenly “recover” from that condition, but your health insurance benefits will probably stop paying for assistance to help you bathe.
The CT Partnership for Long-Term Care was developed to assist individuals develop a strategy to meet their long-term care needs in a cost-effective way. It “is a joint effort by state government and private industry to create an option to help you plan to meet your future long-term care needs without depleting all your assets to pay for care. Under the Connecticut Partnership, private insurance companies competitively sell special long-term care insurance policies. These policies not only offer benefits to pay for long-term care costs, but they also offer Medicaid Asset Protection should you ever need to apply to Connecticut's Medicaid Program for assistance.”
The average cost of nursing home care in CT is $490 per day, or $178,850 per year! Without planning for this type of expense, long-term care could wipe out a lifetime of working, saving, and developing something to leave to your family. There are multiple factors to consider in purchasing long-term care insurance, such as inflation protection or daily benefit maximums. The website of the CT Partnership for Long-Term Care has a great deal of helpful information you should consider in making a long-term care purchase. Utilizing their website can help you determine if the time has come for you to consider long-term care protection. OPM.CTPartnership@ct.gov
(860) 418-6318