Health Insurance: What Is Long-Term Care?

​It is something you hear about, especially when you are talking about the elderly. What exactly is long-term care? Is there more than one kind? Who needs it and how do we get it? These are just some of the questions asked about long-term care. It may even get more complicated once you factor in insurance. For the uninitiated, here is a simple guide to long-term care.

​Long-Term Care Defined
To properly define it, long-term care is providing a service that is designed to meet a person's care needs over a period of time. The important term here is "activities of daily living." These are the basic activities we do to go about our days. They are bathing, eating, changing/dressing, grooming, using the toilet, and moving around.

There Is More Than One Type
There is more than one type of long-term care. For most of us, the most immediate thing that comes to mind is nursing homes. This gives an inaccurate picture of long-term care, namely that it is only a facility and it is for the elderly.

Firstly, you can differentiate long-term care into personal care and community services. Personal care is an assisted living set-up where a professional will help the person with their everyday living. The degree of assistance will depend on the need and the professional you will seek. It can be as simple as assisted home living, or more advanced activities that include medical and health services. You also have a choice of home-based services or using a facility like a nursing home. 

Community services are activities by different community projects. Some examples include "adult days," meals services and even transportation services. These can either be free as sponsored by a community or for a fee.

It Is Not Only For The Elderly
One of the biggest misconceptions for long-term care is that it is for the elderly. Although the elderly make-up quite a significant portion of its market, they are not the only ones. Any person that is incapable of performing any of the "activities of daily living" may need long-term care. These include people who are limited due to a disability, injury, disease, mental or physical.

Conclusion
In general, long-term care is not included in standard health insurance. If you will most likely need long-term care in the future, you will want to avail of long-term care insurance for complete coverage. At Quote Today, we put our clients first by offering them policies that they can afford. Learn more about our products and services by calling our agency at (855) 855-2522. You can also request for a free quote by CLICKING HERE.