Baby Boomers Overlooked True Cost of Long-Term Care

Planning for long term care is anticipating and preparing for your future care needs. More than half of people aging 65 and older will require long term care. Meanwhile, those who are younger are not impervious to this need. In fact 40% of those aging 18-64 have a possibility of needing care even if they are not yet in their elder years. Planning is essential but before you get started, you must first have the answer to the question, “What is long term care?”

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Long term care pertains to the services that a person needs in order to retain the quality of his daily living. A huge part of long term care deals with providing assistance in basic tasks such as bathing, eating or getting dressed. These are referred to as Activities of Daily Living. Long term care mostly deals with the custodial needs of a person.

The figures above tell us that the area of long term care is not supposed to be neglected as each of us will likely require it at some point. If this need comes and you are caught off guard and without a plan, you could deplete your savings, liquidate your assets and acutely damage not just your lifestyle but also your family’s.

The thought of being dependent on someone is hard to picture for some. Of course, all of us would want to be independent even as we grow old. If this is your supporting argument with your refusal to plan, then you are not looking at the bigger picture.

If in case you need care and you are unprepared. Who will you turn to for care? That would be your family and children. If your rely solely on them, they might need to put their lives and careers on hold in order to take care of you or worse, they could also use up their savings in order to pay for your care expenses. Remember that cost of care is continually on the rise and is expected to quadruple in the years to come.

Should you ask again, “what is long term care?” we are hoping that you’ll see it as something you should prepare for. Seniorhousingnews revealed that baby boomers are way off on long-term care estimates. Their estimated cost is way behind the true cost of long-term care services, this could lead to a devastation, not only financially but also to the baby boomers' well-being and family relationship

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The Importance of Planning for long term care

The first step in creating a plan for long term care is determining your future needs. Sure, nobody knows what your future health state would be, but there’s history and family background to look into in order for you to have an idea of your possible requirements.

In order to have an assessment, you can ask your doctor. He can have an evaluation based on your current lifestyle, your health background as well as your family’s. The latter is done in order to see if you are a candidate for any hereditary condition.

Once you have an idea on how your health will be like in the future, you can start mapping out your plan. If you are likely to develop a chronic condition, make sure that you prepare for nursing home stay. This facility offers the highest level of care amongst the different settings so if you’re a candidate for illness, it’s best that you include this in your plan.

On the other hand, if you’re likely to retain your health and are predicted to require a lower level of care, you can opt for in-home care. A home health aide can assist you in performing ADL and can even perform homemaker services.

Determining your needs paves the way for the rest of the planning stage. Knowing them will help you choose the best care setting and can aid you in creating a financial plan in order to pay for long term care. Some of the payment options you can take are long term care insurance, reverse mortgages or annuities.

So, what is long term care? It is a need that requires planning as early as now and what’s mentioned in this article can guide you in doing so.