Does Your Health Insurance Cover Long Term Care?

DOES YOUR HEALTH INSURANCE COVER LONG TERM CARE?

Unless you specifically requested and purchased, your health insurance coverage will provide very little, if any at all for Long Term Care needs. Furthermore, your Medicare, Medicare Supplement or HMO may have the same small coverage as well.

Health insurance is something that covers medical bills that will accrue from any medical emergency that may arise, also routine services such as checkups and exams and certain diagnostic services. It will cover surgeries and other included coverages. This is a form of insurance that covers unforeseen eventualities such as illnesses, diseases, emergencies and costs that accrue from those conditions. Long term care envisages a different scenario.

Long term care or LTC insurance is also known as elder care insurance or nursing home insurance which gives us an idea about why this particular kind of insurance has been formulated. This is the sort of insurance that guarantees the elderly a certain dignity in their old age when they are no long able to do for themselves the things that they used to be able to, due to disability or infirmity brought on by old age.
Whereas health insurance is to do with medical expenses, the primary concept of Long Term Care insurance is to do with assisted living. A health insurance policy will not cover aspect of long term care such as help with day to day activities as basic as bathing, dressing and feeding oneself.
So since health insurance and long term care are modeled around different concepts they are indeed different insurance products and health insurance does not cover what LTC insurance does.