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Inside this Article
What are
Partnership for Long-Term Care Insurance Programs?
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Medicaid is a state-government-administered program that pays the medical and long-term
care expenses of poor 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.
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You’ll have
to spend your own money–including using up your assets–until
you become poor enough to qualify.
But if you live in California, Connecticut, Indiana or New York
and you participate in the state’s Partnership for Long-Term
Care program. You can qualify for Medicaid
without spending yourself into poverty. 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.
What’s the benefit of participating in the Partnership? If
you live in California, Connecticut, or Indiana, for example, and you
- buy a policy under the program,
- live in the state while receiving long-term care
services, and
- receive and exhaust the benefits under the policy
for long-term care services,
you can apply for Medicaid benefits even though you
haven’t sold and used your assets. Each dollar paid by the insurance
company is a dollar of assets you can keep in addition to the
minimums permitted by your state’s Medicaid rules.
For example, suppose the long-term care policy has paid $50,000
in benefits; in that case, you can keep $50,000 in investments or
savings and still qualify for Medicaid. Without a Partnership
long-term care policy, you’d probably have to spend virtually all
of that $50,000 (this is called spending down) before you became
eligible for Medicaid to pay your long-term care bills. However,
even under the Partnership program, although you get to keep your assets,
you might still have to use part of your income to pay long-term
care expenses.
Connecticut and Indiana have a reciprocity agreement, so that if you buy
a policy under one state’s Partnership program and move to the other
state, you can obtain the benefits of the other state’s partnership
program.
Each state’s program is different, so be sure to learn the details of
your state’s Partnership program before buying a long-term care
policy.
In California, for example, the
basic benefits include the following:
- Interchangeable benefits that can be switched
between nursing home care and home care, or a combination of the
two.
- A deductible that must be met only once in your
lifetime.
- Inflation protection to insure that benefits keep
pace with the rising cost of care.
- Waiver of premiums while you are receiving benefits
in a nursing home or residential care facility.
- Care coordination to assist you in planning and
obtaining the services you want and need.
Under the California Partnership program, two types of
policies are available–one that covers only benefits delivered in a
nursing home or residential care facility, and one that covers
comprehensively (at home, in a community facility, in a residential care
facility, or in a nursing home).
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