It may be time for me to place my husband in long term care soon. Or to get more help here at home for my sake.. It's going fast for him now. I am quite paranoid about the long term care", Banker's Life Assurance", company giving us help if I try to go to that avenue. I am of the opinion that they will try do deny us if they can get by with it. Yes, you could say that I am paranoid about them. My lo is getting help one day a week from the V.A. for 3 hours, and it helps so much. We love our homecare worker. We also have a nurse coming an hour once every 2 weeks for an hour. But it's getting so that I hardly dare leave even for groceries. I can't go to Curves anymore for the same reason. I'm thinking if our long term care could kick in 3 days a week for a few hours it could be adequate and it might not be necessary to commit him to the home. I would save a lot of money that we would otherwise be using at the nursing home and have more freedom for things like Curves.. so I have made an appointment with our lawyer. I hate to think of the lawyers bill, but if it saves me some money later maybe it might be worth it. Lo is continent, but getting more and more remote. We are in a small town without respite services. Our lawyer is not an "Elder Lawyer" as such. But he has implemented our will, power of attorney, etc. Being elderly we are "stuck" here. any advice?
midwestmn--I have been using my husband's LTC policy for about 5 years to pay for his care. In this case, it wasn't necessary to enlist any outside help in order to do this. I read the policy and contacted the insurance company with any questions I had. The approval process was very straightforward because cognitive impairment was one of the criteria that met it--they just required some information that they got from the neuro.
If the policy requires that you use a home health agency as the source of in-home help, the agency would probably take on the task of dealing with the LTC insurance company for you, free of charge. That would certainly be a better alternative than paying an attorney to do it.
I am wondering if you've heard of other having difficulties with this particular insurance company. I know that the various companies run the gamut regarding the level of difficulty in claiming benefits. I was very fortunate that the company our policy is with (Unum) is quite cooperative.
midwestmn, we had difficulty with dh's LTC ins co. They investigated us for 6 months and refused to pay any claims until the investigation was complete. They investigated us for fraud because the policy was in effect only a year before dh was dxd with "presenile dementia". They were convinced that we wre hiding medical information which would have proven that we had knowledge of dh's illness when we applied and that the application was therefore fraudulent. That was totally NOT true and eventually I had to use our attorney to deal with them because they got to a point of harassing me. Fortunately we prevailed but it did cost me legal fees.
I consider our situation as an unusal one. I ask the same question as Mailyn-have you heard of people having a bad experience with the LTC company? Or have you tried to make a claim before and had difficulty with the company? There should be any negative info at either your state's attorney general's office or insurance commissioners office if there have been complaints.
My recommendation is the same as Marilyn's-read your policy carefully and call the company with any questions you may have before you make a claim. If that's too difficult for you, perhaps a friend or family member could assist (the policies are not always easy to understand). Personally I would wait until I was denied or had problems before I hired an attorney.
midwestmn, are you sure of the caompany's name? I found American Bankers Assurance Co of Florida and they do not sell long term care insurance. Could it be Bankers Life and Casualty ?
Thanks to both of you for the reply. I slept with him last night and didn't get much rest . He kept asking me if I was tired, and if I had any pills for his headache. this morning he didn't know where the bathroom was or where his false teeth were. We're getting company that were supposed to come for a couple of days today, but I had to call them to tell them not to come 'til tomorrow. I can't cope when I'm that tired. It's tough for everyone and I know he feels badly too. I tried to get him interested in coloring this morning, since he was very into that as a little boy, but I better not push that too far and irritate him