An indispensable product as it may seem, long term care insurance is not yet fully understood by most people who have yet to succeed in differentiating this type of insurance from their regular health insurance policy. Reading a long term care glossary will definitely help them work this out.
Long term care insurance (LTCI) provides so many benefits which an individual will never be able to get from his health insurance policy. While the latter offers limited dental, vision and other forms of medical care, LTCI polices provide a wide range of services to people in need of custodial and medical care.
So we start with custodial care, a term which is seemingly useful only in the long term care (LTC) industry. It refers to personal care or assistance which is provided to people who cannot perform the most basic activities of daily living (ADL) due to a disability, an injury or infirmity. Recipients of custodial care are not necessarily in nursing homes. As a matter of fact, a bigger percentage of them can be found in their own homes because apart from the daily assistance that they receive from a home health aide there is nothing else that they need as of the moment.
You have probably noticed the mention of activities of daily living or ADL above. This term is also famous in the area of LTC because it is the basis for determining one’s eligibility for care. Policyholders need to satisfy the benefit triggers of their LTCI contracts and these are almost always the six ADLs which are eating, bathing, toileting, dressing, continence, and transferring.
Different circumstances can lead to one’s inability to do any of the six ADLs so when negotiating for your policy ask your LTCI representative which of these circumstances shall qualify you for your LTCI policy’s benefits. Most companies will not count attempted suicide and drug addiction as valid.
Long Term Care Glossary
Aside from helping you grasp the industry’s language, an LTC glossary will also guide you as you work on your LTCI policy for it contains the four major components of a policy which are the maximum monthly/daily benefit amount, period of coverage, inflation protection rider, and the elimination or waiting period.
It is necessary to learn these four important factors by heart because the amount of your annual premium will depend on them.
Your maximum benefit amount is the highest amount of benefits that you will receive from your policy and this can be paid to you daily or monthly. The period of coverage which is popularly known as the maximum benefit period refers to the length of time that you will receive coverage from your policy.
Meanwhile, having an inflation protection will keep your policy’s benefits at pace with annual inflation. Elimination period, on the other hand, pertains to the length of time in which you have to pay for the LTC services that you acquire using your own money.
After skimming the long term care glossary go back to page one and read the definition of each LTC term slowly to be able to ingest every word as this will help you understand better what the industry is all about and why you need to plan for your future health care needs the soonest that you can.