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When should I think about my long-term care plan?

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Well I think it’s important to start thinking about that probably in your 50s or maybe even early 60s. Hopefully, at a time when you’re somewhat healthy and insurable and have the option maybe of looking at long term care insurance. We are all living older and longer and statistics show that the longer we live, the more likely it is that we’re going to end up in some sort of long term care facility and how are we going to pay for that and what can we do to make sure that we get to live in the facility or the surroundings that we want and not what someone else chooses for us?

You know, right now, in Washington virtually every nursing home in the state accepts Medicaid, which will pay for your long-term care. But of course, nobody wants to live their last days in a nursing home so they’d rather live at home or maybe in a nice assisted living facility. So how is that going to be paid for? A lot of the nicer facilities some of them don’t take Medicaid and the ones that do, they’re going to ask for a private pay period of maybe two, maybe three, maybe even five years. And so, you know, planning for how are you going to pay for that private pay period, whether that’s going to be through insurance or whether you got your own money to do that. I think it’s very important to plan so that you can decide where you’re going to live and how you’re going to live in those later years and the earlier, the better.

Seattle, WA estates & probate lawyer Bill Hickman explains why it’s never too early to start planning for your long-term care.

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