What are Partnership for Long-Term Care Programs?
LTC Partnerships
Medicaid is a state-government-administered program that pays the medical and long-term care expenses of impoversished people. If you have more money than your state permits when you need long-term care services, your state’s Medicaid won’t pay for those services. You’ll have to spend your own money–including using up your assets–until you become financially depleted to qualify.
Partnership for Long-Term Care
In some states if you participate in the state’s Partnership for Long-Term Care program, you can qualify for Medicaid without spending yourself into poverty.
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Dollar-For-Dollar Asset Protection is a way to qualify for Medicaid without spending your life's savings. This benefit is not available with non-Partnership policies.
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Inflation Protection options that adjust the policy's benefits to keep up with the rising cost of long-term care.
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Professionally Trained Agents are the only ones who can offer Partnership Policies
To participate in the Partnership, you must buy a long-term care insurance policy that contains at least the basic benefits required by the Partnership program.
How Will The Long-term Care Partnership Work?
For every dollar that a LTC Partnership insurance policy pays out in benefits, a dollar of personal assets can be protected (disregarded during the Medicaid eligibility review) if the individual chooses to apply for Medicaid.
The amount of the Dollar-For-Dollar Asset Protection is calculated based on:
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The amount of benefits paid by the LTC insurance company on the policyholder's behalf.
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It is not necessarily equal to the amount of the premiums paid or the maximum benefit.
EXAMPLES
Scenario 1
A policyholder utilizes $100,000 in LTC Partnership insurance benefits and has $100,000 in additional assets.He or she applies to the Medicaid program for assistance and the state Medicaid program disregards dollar-for-dollar the amount that the insurance policy paid (in this case $100,000) from his or her assets during the Medicaid eligibility determination process.
Scenario 2
A policyholder utilizes $100,000 in LTC Partnership insurance benefits, but he or she has $300,000 in assets.The policyholder could be eligible for Medicaid when he or she reduces her assets to $102,000 ($100,000 in excluded assets plus the $2,000 Medicaid resource limit available to all Medicaid applicants).
Scenario 3
This case is a bit tricky. In this example the LTC insurance policy does not cover the entire cost of care per day.So, the policyholder must use her own assets to subsidize the LTC insurance policy in order to afford care. The policyholder decreases assets by subsidizing her cost of care. As time goes by, the policyholder decreases her assets and accrues insurance benefits paid on her behalf (e.g. $50,000 of insurance benefits paid and $50,000 in assets remaining).The policyholder could be eligible for Medicaid since all of her remaining assets would be excludable.In this scenario, the policyholder is eligible for Medicaid before exhausting the LTC insurance benefit. The policyholder could receive all the Medicaid services covered in the state plan, but the LTC insurance policy would continue to pay for long-term care until the policy is exhausted.Examples provided by: Center for Health Care Strategies.
Get More Information | States Participating In Long Term Care Partnerships
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Jim Robinson posted on Saturday, October 30, 2010
Tags: Long Term Care, LTC, Aging Parents, Long Term Care Partnerships, Elder Care
Posted in: Health
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