How can a long term health insurance plan benefit me?

A long term health insurance plan can be beneficial in helping you pay your medical bills should you develop a chronic illness that could be potentially debilitating in your later years. It’s hard to know whether or not a long term care policy is right for you when you’re young and healthy. But if you have a family history of certain types of chronic health issues, it’s something you should seriously consider.

If you’re considering a long term plan, you can start searching for online health insurance quotes right now by entering your ZIP code into the FREE search tool on this website!

A long term plan doesn’t take the place of standard health insurance; rather, it is supplemental health insurance that covers many of the things a standard health insurance plan does not. The cost of these plans varies depending on your needs and budget.

Having a long term health insurance plan could mean the difference between having most of your medical bills covered in the future or having to sell valuable assets to pay them on your own.

What is long term health insurance?

In a publication offered by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, long term health insurance is defined as a health plan that covers some of the services required by individuals who are disabled or suffering from a chronic illness. This type of supplemental health insurance plan would pay for things not covered by primary health insurance or Medicare and Medicaid. This is an important distinction because many people think Medicare and Medicaid will cover just about anything a subscriber needs.

In order which plan is best, you’ll have to compare long term health insurance companies and their individual policies side by side. It is no different than comparing standard health policies or other forms of insurance. The best way to do this is to ask for a list of benefits from multiple insurance providers. If the companies provide such information in the form of charts or graphs, that will make your comparison a lot easier.

Do I need Medicaid and a long term policy?

Medicaid is a government sponsored health care plan intended for people who cannot afford standard health insurance. Medicaid takes the best aspects of a managed care plan and combines them with the best aspects of a major medical policy. It provides a hybrid set of benefits that can be significantly different from many standard health insurance policies. Nailing down exactly what Medicaid will pay for in a long term situation is a difficult task.

The official Medicare website clearly indicates that Medicaid and Medicare will not pay for routine, daily care in a chronic situation. They cite daily diabetic testing as an example. In other words, if a chronically disabled individual requires a nurse or home health aide to provide diabetic testing several times a day, that testing would not be paid for by Medicaid or Medicare.

These are the types of things supplemental health insurance for Medicare takes care of. Long term health insurance overlaps standard health insurance in many cases. Where there is an overlap your primary health insurance is the first one responsible for paying on claims. What your primary health insurance provider does not cover will then be the responsibility of your long term health insurance plan.

What are the benefits of a long term insurance plan?

The two most common benefits of long term health insurance mentioned by subscribers are peace of mind and asset protection. Having such a plan eases the minds of people and their family members who would otherwise face potentially high stress situations worrying about how to pay for long term medical care. When people don’t have to worry about such issues, they tend to be healthier, happier, and more productive.

In terms of asset protection, a long term health care policy reduces the need for liquidating assets in order to pay for long term care. When you consider how quickly the cost of everyday healthcare services is going up, this is a real, tangible benefit that serves as motivation to purchase a long term plan. Many older people liquidate their assets and transfer them to their children as a means of protecting them against the need to pay future medical bills. Having a long term health care plan mitigates many of those issues.

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