Long Term Care
Because of old age, mental or physical illness, or injury, some people find themselves in need of help with eating, bathing, dressing, toileting or continence, and/or transferring (e.g., getting out of a chair or out of bed). These six actions are called Activities of Daily Living–sometimes referred to as ADLs. In general, if you can’t do two or more of these activities, or if you have a cognitive impairment, you are said to need “long-term care.”

Long-term care isn’t a very helpful name for this type of situation because, for one thing, it might not last for a long time. Some people who need ADL services might need them only for a few months or less.

Many people think that long-term care is provided exclusively in a nursing home. It can be, but it can also be provided in an adult day care center, an assisted living facility, or at home.

Assistance with ADLs, called “custodial care,” may be provided in the same place as (and therefore is sometimes confused with) “skilled care.” Skilled care means medical, nursing, or rehabilitative services, including help taking medicine, undergoing testing (e.g. blood pressure), or other similar services. This distinction is important because generally Medicare and most private health insurance pays only for skilled care–not custodial care.

Hospital Indemnity Insurance

Hospital indemnity insurance (also known as hospital confinement insurance or simply hospital insurance) is supplemental medical insurance coverage that pays benefits if you are hospitalized.⁴ While health insurance pays for medical services after copays, co-insurance, and deductibles are met, hospital indemnity insurance pays you if you are hospitalized, regardless of any other coverage you may have.

There is no one-size-fits-all; every hospital indemnity plan is different. Common examples of the type of benefits these plans may offer are a fixed benefit for admission to the hospital, a fixed benefit for an overnight stay, and a fixed benefit for each overnight stay in an intensive care unit.⁵ Hospital indemnity insurance policies may include other types of benefits as well. Among those are a benefit for treatment in an emergency room, and a benefit paid for certain outpatient procedures. Some hospital indemnity insurance policies may even pay a benefit for certain specified diseases or accidents, but normally people purchase separate indemnity policies (cancer, critical illness, or accident, etc.) as specialized policies offer more robust benefit amounts.