Long-term care is a variety of services and supports to meet health or personal care needs over an extended period of time. Most long-term care is non-skilled personal care assistance, such as help performing everyday Activities of Daily Living (ADLs), which are:
- Bathing,
- Dressing,
- Using the toilet,
- Transferring (to or from bed or chair),
- Caring for incontinence, and
- Eating.
The goal of long-term care services is to help you maximize your independence and functioning at a time when you are unable to be fully independent.
As more and more Americans begin to think of retirement and their golden years, the skyrocketing costs of nursing homes and assisted living facilities threaten to financially cripple many Americans who have worked for so hard and so long to provide both for their retirement and for a nest egg for their children. This is one of the many reasons, as you begin to think of retirement, that you should consider owning a long-term care insurance policy.
The statistics are startling. After age 65, most people have a 50% chance of needing long-term care. This is far more than the one-in-1200 chance of needing your homeowners insurance or a one-in 250 chance of using your auto insurance. One-in-two people who have long-term care will use it, and it is the one insurance that you are least likely to have. This is why you should have long-term care insurance, even if you are in good health now
