What is Long-Term Care?
Types of Long-Term Care
Long-term care services range from home- and community-based services to services provided in an assisted living or nursing facility. All services are designed to improve or maintain an individual's health and to maintain the individual in the least restrictive setting that ensures their health, safety, and welfare.
- Care can range from a few hours per week to around-the-clock care.
- Services can be provided in the patient's home, at a community-based setting, or at a nursing home.
- Services are typically paid out of pocket or paid by private LTC insurance. For those individuals who become impoverished, Medicaid may assist with the cost of long-term care.
- Adult Day Health Care Center
- This is a care provider that is enrolled with the DMAS. It offers a community-based day program providing a variety of health, therapeutic, and social services designed to meet the specialized needs of those elderly and disabled persons at risk of placement in a nursing facility. All Adult Day Health Care Centers must be licensed by the Virginia Department of Social Services (VDSS).
- Adult Day Services
- Services designed to prevent institutionalization by providing participants with health, maintenance, and coordination of rehabilitation services in a congregate daytime setting.
- Certified Home Health Services
- These are services that include medical, therapeutic or other health services in an individual's home. Care is part-time, intermittent care and offers support services from physicians, nurses, therapists, social workers, homemakers, personal care attendants, and other health and social services staff as necessary.
- Hospice
- Short-term, supportive care for the terminally ill (life expectancy of six months or less) that focuses on pain management, and emotional, physical, and spiritual support for the patient and family. It can be provided at home, in a hospital, nursing facility or hospice facility.
- Private Duty Nursing
- Individual and continuous nursing care provided by a registered nurse or a licensed practical nurse under the supervision of a registered nurse.
- Nursing Facilities
- A residence for people who require constant medical care—nursing homes are required to have a licensed nurse on duty 24 hours a day, and during at least one shift each day, one of those nurses must be a Registered Nurse. Although all nursing homes must provide certain basic services, some homes provide special care for certain types of clients: for the head injured, for those who are ventilator-dependent, for people with AIDS, and for children.
- Respite Care
- Services provided by unpaid caregivers of eligible individuals who are unable to care for themselves and are provided on an episodic or routine basis because of the absence of or need for relief of those unpaid persons who routinely provide the care.
- Long-term Care
- Care for people who are unable to perform the basic tasks of everyday living independently due to chronic medical, physical or cognitive conditions, or disabling injuries. From an insurance perspective, long-term care provides services beyond what health insurance covers. It is considered different from medical treatment for an illness, an injury, or surgery.
- Long-term Care Insurance
- Insurance that covers long-term care services provided in one or more settings, such as a nursing home, the patient's home, or in a community-based setting. Long-term care is not typically covered by traditional health insurance plans, disability insurance plans, Medicare, or Medicare supplement insurance (Medigap).
More than 70% of Americans who live to retirement age will need long-term care at some time in their lives [1]. In 2006, the national average cost of a semi-private room in a nursing home was $171 per day [2]. With an average stay of 2.4 years [3], that's more than $160,000 per average stay. Home health care can be expensive as well. Few people can afford these costs without using their life's savings or having insurance.
- ^ "Americans Fail to Act on Long Term Care Protection," American Society on Aging, May 2003.
- ^ National Clearinghouse for Long-Term Care Information, http://www.longtermcare.gov⇒
- ^ The Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation, "Health Care & The 2004 Elections," October 10, 2004.