How to fund home health care if you want to ‘age in place’

About 70% of people want to stay at home, but only 10% have long-term care insurance, a recent HCG Secure/Arctos Foundation research Find. Furthermore, about half of the respondents do not know how much home care costs.

With the average annual cost of a home healthcare assistant nationwide estimates at $61,776 how are people going to fund this?

“The need for help at home is much more common than you might think, but people don’t plan for it,” says Chris, a certified financial planner. Bare, Wealth strategist with Insight Financial Strategies in Newton, Massachusetts.

People with long-term care insurance will typically get home health coverage under the same eligibility conditions as for long-term care facilities — inability to do two of the six called activities of daily life, Chen said. Follow Management of community activitiesThis condition usually lasts an average of two years.

“Basically, I try to divide risk into short-term needs and long-term needs, and finance them separately,” he said. “If possible, I would encourage people to buy LTC insurance for a short coverage period, maybe a year.”

“Then I encourage them to buy mixed life insurance for longer term coverage,” added Chen. “And I want to plan some assets to be used to offset the difference.”

Tom Beauregard, founder of insurance company HCG Secure, said “innovation is needed in this space to pay middle-income families as they age at home.”

“For most people, it’s a blind spot – they [mistakenly] think home care will be covered by them [employee] insurance or Medicare,” he said. “And most of them can’t afford long-term care insurance.”

Beauregard’s company recently launched Safe home careone weekly cash compensation plan, plus access to planning and coordination services such as health assessments, home care plans, help finding and scheduling assistants home healthcare, telehealth, etc.

While indemnity plans pay out cash benefits, the policies themselves do not retain the cash value of plans like mixed life insurance.

• Offer accommodation in exchange for support at home, especially in college towns.
• Cost-sharing and time-sharing of carers and other helpers with neighbors or loved ones. “If neighbors share, then you are really close, just like you have [helper] available all day,” said Kovar.
• He said: “Look out for any corporate retiree benefits beyond pensions, as there are often additional services to home care.
• Research local nonprofits that can help pay for home health care, through your state’s disability and aging resource centers and websites like the Foundation. United States Administration on Aging Elderly care locator.
• Consider possible benefits from previous law enforcement or other public service employment.

Scott Vance, CFP, owner of Trisuli Financial Consulting in Holly Springs, North Carolina, focuses his practice on military members and veterans. He said the Department of Veterans Affairs provides eligible veterans with a variety of testing facilities home care servicesuch as light house cleaning, laundry, meal preparation, shopping, scheduling transportation and — in extreme cases — bathing, toileting, eating, dressing, etc.

In addition, the so-called Aid and Diligence benefits that provide monthly payments to eligible veterans and survivors.

Vance said he helped secure such benefits for his elderly uncle and found it easy.

“The VA really stepped up,” he said. “Enrolling him in services is almost painless.”

Thinking about these things in advance can help you live a calmer and safer life at home, says Beauregard of HCG Secure.

“If you can get a little medical help at home, your chances of experiencing a serious disaster are lower – such as a major fall. [or while trying to keep] “There are all kinds of crisis opportunities,” he said.