Over one in four individuals age 85 plus who resides in a nursing home has been there for three years or longer according to a report published by the long term care insurance industry trade group. Some 16 percent of that age group has been there for three months or less.
“While most long term care takes place today in the home, people still want to prepare for what we refer to as the worst case scenario, which is a nursing home stay,” explains Jesse Slome, executive director of the American Association for Long-Term Care Insurance. The organization publishes independently conducted research in their 2012 Long Term Care Insurance Sourcebook.
<h2>Long Term Care Insurance – Nursing Home Avoidance Insurance</h2>
According to the data that reported the length of stay in a nursing home since admission, nearly a quarter (24.5%) of individuals under the age of 65 had been residents for three months or less. “About the same percentage (24.2%) had been there for between one and three years,” Slome notes. The study reports that 27.6 percent had been residing in the nursing home for three years or longer.
The study revealed compared those with stays of three years or more and found that 27.5 percent of women were residents longer, compared to 21.1 percent for men. “There’s no question that because women live longer lives, their risk of needing long term care services, which could take place in a skilled nursing home facility is greater,” Slome, one of the nation’s long term care insurance experts reports. “That is a reason we urge both women and men, but especially women, to do some long term care planning prior to reaching Medicare-qualification age.”
November is Long Term Care Awareness Month and the trade group urges individuals to take 10 minutes to learn more about the issue. The organization offers four excellent consumer guides that are available online addressing ways to plan for the long term care risk and providing information relevant for those who may want to consider long term care insurance. The guides can be accessed at http://www.aaltci.org/guides.
Established in 1998 as a non-profit trade group, the Los Angeles, California-based American Association for Long Term Care Insurance advocates for the importance of planning for long term care and supports insurance and financial professionals who market LTC insurance. The Association established November as National Long Term Care Awareness Month in 2001. To learn more about long term care insurance costs call the organization’s offices at (818) 597-3227 or visit the Association’s website.
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