04 Apr Long-Term Care-Definitions-Mesa, AZ
Phelps LaClair has offices in Phoenix, Chandler, and Mesa, AZ. We do estate planning, which includes helping you with Wills and Trusts, Trust Administration, Special Needs Planning, and most other aspects of securing your financial future. Since it’s our business to help you look ahead, we’d like to present a series of three blog posts on Long-Term Care and what you can do now to protect your estate, should you or your spouse need Long-Term Care.
Long-Term Care-Definitions-Mesa, AZ
In this blog post, we want to present three different aspects of elder care and explain their basic differences. It’s essential to understand how they differ before moving on to blog post number two, a discussion on Medicare, and where it fits with each category. And finally, in our third blog post in the series, we’ll present possible options for protecting your estate from escalating elder care costs.
Here are the basic differences between an Acute Care Hospital, a Long-Term Care Hospital, and Long Term Care.
- Acute Care Hospital – An Acute Care Hospital (ACH) is a medical facility designed to care for acute conditions, e.g., a heart attack, stroke, infections, diseases, or accidents. The goal of acute care hospitals is to treat and/or cure the problem.
- Long-Term Care Hospital – As per the government’s Medicare Website, “Long-Term Care Hospitals specialize in treating patients who may have more than one serious condition, but who may improve with time and care and return home.” A person might be transferred from an ACH to a Long-Term-Care Hospital (LTCH) if an acute condition such as a stroke or heart attack have created complications that require skilled medical care for a longer period of time.
- Long-Term Care – Long-Term Care (LTC) is also referred to as custodial care, and it is for patients who require help in carrying out daily activities like eating, bathing, or dressing themselves. Long-Term Care can be given by caretakers at a nursing home or other facility, as well as at home. Some medical care may be delivered depending on the kind of LTC that is established, but for the most part, LTC is non-medical, daily caregiving for patients who cannot live independently.
In our next blog post, we’ll delve into how Medicare interfaces with these types of care, and then we’ll finish up our series with some encouragement about estate planning. None of us necessarily wants to think about the possibility of long-term nursing care, but ignoring the future may have unpleasant consequences that could drain an entire estate and leave the healthy spouse in the poorhouse. It’s a reality that gives pause for careful reflection.
Phelps LaClair in Mesa, AZ understands elder care and the ins and outs of protecting your estate. For any questions on Wills and Trusts and planning now for the future, please contact us. Let’s discuss securing your future investment from unexpected loss. Your first consultation is absolutely free.
Images used under creative commons license – commercial use (4/4/2018) Jeffrey Smith (Flickr)