You Are Less Prepared for Long-Term Care Than You Think You Are

It was a lifetime ago, but your fellow graduating seniors chose well when they voted you most conscientious in your high school graduating class. Nearly fifty years hence, you have written your will and reread it every year on New Year’s Day. You updated it when major changes occurred, like when your grandchildren were born and when you and your spouse inherited money from family members. You have even written two versions of your retirement budget, one that assumes that you will begin drawing Social Security on your next birthday, and the other that assumes that you will wait until you are 70. You think you have everything figured out, but you have probably made a significant error in calculating your retirement expenses. If you budgeted any money for long-term care expenses, you are in a better position than most, but you probably did not budget enough for it. For help revising your retirement budget to accommodate long-term care expenses, contact a Dade City estate planning lawyer.

Most of the Time, There Is No One But You to Pay for Long-Term Care

Being a well-prepared senior, you probably spent a lot of time researching which Medicare plans will make your healthcare the most affordable. You may have saved a bundle on prescription drugs and doctor’s office visits. Even the most generous Medicare plans do not pay for long-term care, or at least, not as much as most people need. Private health insurance plans usually do not pay for nursing home care at all. Therefore, a painful amount of your long-term care expenses will be out of pocket.

This might not be obvious when you read the descriptions of the Medicare plans. Medicare pays for up to 100 days of skilled nursing care, such as when nurses administer your medications by injection or IV. It counts as skilled nursing care whether you receive the services in a nursing home or from a home health aide. Those 100 days add up quickly, and then your out-of-pocket costs start piling up. Even worse, Medicare does not pay for custodial care, which is where home health aides or nursing home staff help with tasks of daily life, such as personal hygiene and preparing meals. A recent article on the CNBC Personal Finance website said that, of the retirees who had saved for long-term care, most had saved only $25,000, but a person who retired in 2024 will likely incur much more than that. In fact, if you retire this year, there is a 15 percent chance that you will pay more than $100,000 over your lifetime.

How to Afford Long-Term Care on a Modest Budget

Medicaid will pay for your long-term care if you run out of retirement savings, or if you never had them. Being a Medicaid nursing home beneficiary is an austere existence, though, so, if possible, you should buy long-term care insurance now, while you are still healthy. The most affordable policies are hybrid life insurance policies, which provide long-term care benefits and death benefits in whichever combination you need them.

Contact a Florida Estate Planning Attorney About Affording Long-Term Care

An estate planning attorney can help you figure out how to afford long-term care with or without long-term care insurance.  Contact The Law Office of Laurie R. Chane in Dade City, Florida to discuss your case.

Source:

cnbc.com/2025/05/17/why-long-term-care-costs-can-be-a-huge-problem.html