How can I Pay for Specialized Nursing Home Care?

If someone you care about needs more care than you can safely provide for them at home, you may need to consider a nursing home. It is important to choose a nursing home that is the best option for your loved one. After you do this though, you need to decide how you will pay for this care. There are many choices you may have to choose from. If you need help deciding which payment method is best or if your relative has been abuse or neglected in their nursing home, you should talk to a nursing home neglect attorney at the Higgins Firm. Our legal team will answer any questions you have and help you recover any damages you need for the abuse your family has been caused.

What are Some Federal Options for Paying for a Nursing Home?

If you are struggling to figure out how to pay for the nursing home care someone you know needs then you should consider some of the federal options that may be available to you. These may include but are not limited to:

• Medicare

Medicare may help cover some nursing home costs but there are limitations. Medicare does not cover long-term care and is only intended for people that may need a nursing home for a short time. This means medicare will pay the entire cost of a nursing home stay for twenty days. For the eighty days after that, Medicare will cover eighty percent of the expenses. If you have supplemental Medicare coverage, it will pay for the other twenty percent not covered by regular Medicare. If a loved one is in a nursing home for longer than one hundred days, Medicare will not cover the costs.

Medicare also only covers nursing home stays for people that have an injury or short-term illness. It does not cover care for a lifelong illness or condition.

• Medicaid

Medicaid may pay for at least forty percent of nursing home care or they may cover all of it if you are eligible. In order to be eligible, you must meet certain financial and income requirements. Whether or not you are eligible can be determined by your age, whether or not you are married and where you live. Typically, in order to be eligible you may only have two thousand dollars in assets excluding your home if someone else lives there. You should contact the state medicaid department to figure out if you or your loved one would be eligible.

• VA Assistance

There are two kinds of VA assistance programs. The first is the Aid and Attendance Benefit which gives financial help to people that have served in the war if they need a person to help them with their daily needs. This is supposed to help people that do not have much income but more income than a person eligible for Medicaid would have. They can use this assistance for assisted living or a nursing home.

The other VA assistance is for people that have served and their husbands or wives and this is a VA nursing home. This is for people that do not get the other VA benefits. There are no set eligibility requirements for this but most veterans or their loved ones must be seventy percent disabled. However, each state has their own requirements.

What are Some Other Options for Paying for a Nursing Home?

Some other options for paying for nursing home care may be using a saving account, life-insurance or long-term care insurance. If you have a large amount of savings this may be a good option to consider. If not, you may want to consider life-insurance or long-term care insurance. Some life insurance policies let you use these funds to pay for nursing home care but there may be limitations and penalties so you should speak with your insurance provider.

Long-term care insurance may be expensive at first but may help pay for at least five percent of a nursing home costs. This can be used when a person has an event happen such as an illness or if the person caring for them has died. This insurance can be using for nursing home care and at home care. The amount you pay for this insurance depends on your health and age and may be really expense for some people.

Our legal team at the Higgins Firm understands how difficult these decisions may be for you. We know how overwhelming the process can be, we can help answer any questions you may have about your payment options or help you if your loved one has been neglected while living in a nursing home. We care about our clients and will help you get fairly compensated for any injuries that have been suffered.

You can contact us online or by calling 800.705.2121 to discuss your case and any questions you might have.