South Pasadena Care Center

If you are paying your nursing home costs with savings or long-term care insurance, you won’t have to worry about losing your assets. However, if you are using Medicaid to pay for your nursing home costs, you may have to forfeit your assets in order to qualify for coverage. This is because Medicaid is only available to individuals who fall under a certain income limit.

The terms “assisted living” and “nursing home” have different definitions, even though they are sometimes used interchangeably. An assisted living facility helps residents with their daily tasks, such as preparing meals, taking medications, and cleaning their spaces, but it does not provide ongoing medical care. The staff at an assisted living facility can take residents to their doctor’s appointments and provide help with common wellness issues, but they are not physicians and cannot provide the same level of care as a nursing home.

Nursing homes provide medical care around the clock, as well as help with everything from eating to bathing to dressing, depending on the patient’s needs. Nursing home patients are supervised by licensed physicians. Many patients move from assisted living to a nursing home after an injury or if a chronic condition gets too difficult to manage without daily care.

• Medicare provides some coverage for nursing facilities, but you will still be left with out-of-pocket expenses. Medicare covers 100 days at a skilled nursing facility per benefit period. In some cases, Medicare can also cover 35 hours per week of home health services.
• Medicaid assistance levels differ between states. Veterans and their spouses may also be eligible for extended assistance benefits – veterans themselves may qualify for as much as $1,794 per month in assistance for nursing home costs.
• Many people choose to pay their nursing home fees with long-term care insurance. Long-term care insurance is designed to cover nursing homes, assisted living, and other ongoing healthcare needs. Some types of life insurance also provide a way to access your death benefit to pay for long-term medical coverage as needed.

Caring for someone who has dementia or Alzheimer’s can be very challenging. While every situation is different, there are some key signs that a dementia patient should be moved into a facility with care available around the clock. Some of these signs include:

• Frequent wandering
• Difficulty moving around
• No caregiver available locally
• Family caregivers are stressed and unable to maintain a balanced life

Medicare does not cover the full cost of staying in a nursing home. Medicare does cover the first 100 days in any skilled nursing facility, but after that point you will need to rely on savings, long-term care insurance, Medicaid, or another solution to pay your nursing home expenses.