A personal injury many times has lasting effects on a person s life. Sometimes people can t go back to jobs they are trained for and have to change professions. Other times they are disabled to the point of not being able to work. So we need to take a look at the long term price for needing extended medical attention.
Physical therapy, if you need it after all your other medical procedures have been done, can run a couple hundred dollars a day. Regular medical insurance only pays a portion of this cost.
If you have to spend anytime in a nursing home facility to recover, it can run about $153 daily, or more. This price doesn t include such things as medications and physical therapy which are extra charges. All this can really add up to a large expense.
If an assisted living facility is needed then that could run $2000 to $3000 a month with inflation figured in on the latest statistics. That is $24,000 to $36,000 yearly, which does include the rent and many of the fees that go with living in a place like this.
You may require some home care part time along the way, and this can run from about $12,000 to $16,000 per year, or more. If full time home care is necessary though this cost could easily become $40,000 to $50,000 yearly and that is not even round the clock care.
You may wonder who picks up the cost for all this care. Personal medical or company medical insurance may pay a portion of this care, then you will have to pay the rest. You could have medicare and a medicare supplement insurance but this too only pays part of the expenses. You will have to pay the rest or your family members will have to help out.
Even the Medicare or Medicaid benefit for skilled nursing facility care often doesn t pay for all care in nursing homes. It usually covers a limited stay under very specific circumstances. It could cover some short term stay after you have been in the hospital for an injury or severe illness. You usually have to spend about 3 days in the hospital before they will cover this though. Medicare only covers the home health care under certain circumstances. For one thing you have to be housebound and unable to go anywhere except perhaps the doctor. You must also be receiving physical therapy or other skilled nursing.
Even the Medicare supplement insurance has its limits for what it pays. It is a good rule of thumb to expect that Medicare and the Medicare supplement insurance will not pay enough toward long term care to be totally useful.
Medicaid is a program funded by the government which will pay some of the cost for care in nursing homes, but just for those individuals who don t have the means or assets to do so. It does depend on which state you live in but around half of the expense of the nursing home is paid for by Medicaid. People have to use up their own assets before being eligible most of the time.
There is the long term care insurance that you can buy these days that helps greatly in handling all the above expenses. This is actually recommended so that you are better covered.
Author Resource:-
Rex Bush is founder of Bush Law Firm near Salt Lake City, Utah where he handles personal injury cases in Utah and throughout the United States and Canada. For more information on personal injury issues visit his website: http://www.utah-personal-injury-attorney.com
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