LONG TERM CARE

• Personal care assistants or companions who handle household tasks like cleaning, cooking, and running errands.
  
• Home health aides who provide personal care like help with bathing and dressing.
  
• Nurses who can support IVs, medications, and more complex health issues.
  

• In-home care, which makes it possible for people to live in their own homes or to return to their homes by helping them complete household tasks that they can't manage alone. Homemaker service aides may clean houses, cook meals, or run errands.
  
• Adult day care, which offers social and therapeutic activities while you continue to live at home.
• Assisted living facilities, which let you maintain much of your independence while providing on-site support for activities of daily living.
• Nursing homes will give you more skilled and intensive care associated with supervision, medication, therapies, and rehabilitation.
  

1. Public programs
   Medicare can help pay for some long term care expenses and many people think that it will cover all of their long term care needs. Generally, Medicare will not pay for services for chronic conditions that require ongoing care.
   
   Medicaid pays for certain health services and nursing home care for people with low incomes and limited assets. Eligibility is usually based on income and personal financial resources. So, to qualify for Medicaid you may have to spend down your assets. The specifics vary by state.
   
   
2. Private or family support
   Your family or loved ones could provide long term care. However, you should consider the numerous physical, financial, emotional and geographic circumstances that may have a significant impact on caregivers and their families.
   
   
3. Other forms of insurance
   Generally, disability insurance replaces lost income to cover basic living expenses like rent, food, and clothing. Health insurance covers part of the cost for hospital stays, prescription drugs, and doctor's visits but it may not help with the cost of long term care services associated with the activities of daily living, such as bathing or using the restroom.
   
   
4. Self-funding
   While decades of savings may help you accumulate money to pay for long term care, you may not have decades to save before an event occurs. Saving for long term care may provide flexibility, but saving enough to cover long term care expenses may be more difficult than you think.
   
   
5. Long Term Care Insurance
   Long term care insurance may give you the option to have a voice in the care you receive.