Long-Term Care Insurance with Josephine Porokoso

*The following is the output of transcribing from an audio recording. Although the transcription is largely accurate, in some cases it is incomplete or inaccurate due to inaudible passages or transcription errors.

This is a special presentation of Answers for Elders with Serengeti Care. Good afternoon everyone. We are back with Josephine Porokoso of Serengeti Care which covers they cover kings now, Hamish peers and kids up counties and they provide home care and different types of services for seniors and Josephine’s thank you so much for being here today. Hi, I’m glad to be here. Thank you for having me. I you know, I’m really these. This is a really important topic that we’re here to talk about everyone because, you know, those of us that are baby boomers, a lot of us have taken care of our parents and you know, we realize what an overwhelming cost that it is for senior care and a lot of us are looking at long term care and shirts right now, and so you know, I know this is an exciting this is not an exciting topic to talk about because nobody wants to be talking about insurance, but it’s one of those necessary things. I think that will be important information for you to look at, and so Josephine has been kind enough to come forward and we can kind of weed out the things you need to know everything you need to know about long term care insurance. So thank you so much, Josephine you for being here. Tell me a little bit about you know, how does long term care insurance work when it comes to home care? So a lot of people don’t know this, but I just want to make it clear that, you know, a lot of long term care policies can actually cover home care. But we just have to make sure that you know when you’re getting the policy, you know what it covers correct and also we, as the experts, can help you, like no, navigate your policy and see what is covered in Nie Right and and this is an important factor, especially today, because there’s different types of long term care policies, like what Josephine talks about, and one of the things that you guys need to understand is is when you turn into your s a lot of us are going to there’s going to be more technologies emerging, there’s going to be new types of things that seniors are going to be able to stay at home longer and longer as time progresses. And, as such, if you’re going to purchase a policy that’s going to take care of you and your aging years, you need to think about do I want to stay home and most likely you do, and so that’s something that we really want to look at. So you know, obviously home care, paying for home care. It’s not cheap, because it no, it’s not that. So you know, obviously you know. If you’re working with clients right now, I’m sure that there’s an increase as seniors have purchases policies that your you’re building their insurance and that’s helping to offset a lot of costs. Yes, that’s true. I just want to touch back at a point that you mentioned. Like know, most people want to stay in their homes. Statistics have actually shown that people that age and stay in their homes they tend to live longer than going to if facility like assisted leaving. So if they’d at all you can avoid going to facility. You want to stay in your home because it’s just better for you well, and it’s also the nice thing about, you know, their wonderful advances of technology. There’s all kinds of things that seniors can take advantage of to be able to stay in their homes longer, unlike what maybe you know. We baby boomers, when we took care of our parents, there wasn’t a lot of options out there now. There’s special kinds of monitoring systems. There’s different, different types of ways in which their sensors so if they get up in the middle of the night and they don’t come to back to bed, you know there’s an alert that can again help you. So there’s all different types of ways in which you can help to, you know, kind of listen in on that that you know aging pair and course we can only fast forward the clock to know that that’s going to get be much more so. So and I think it’s really wise. Just mean that you’re bringing this up in the fact that you know people can stay in their homes. That’s right, that’s awesome. So what what is your you know, experience on long term term care and shirts how does it make a difference in families lives? So if you have a long term can long term care policy eat helps relieve the financial burden? Hmm, because we have some clients right now that paying private pay and it can be very costly. I’m home lacking the costly. But if you have a policy in place that will help push on the cost and sure it’s just a bit of situation or around and obviously, as your needs increase, then that’s nice to have that policy as well, because obviously then you can, depending on the type of policy you have, it can help take care of you as your needs increase exactly forward. So somebody’s looking for home care and would like to know if they qualify using their policy. You know, what do they start from? So the first thing you want to do is we need to get a copy of your policy. So we have to look at what the policy covers and what he doesn’t cover, and he had certain annuity. We help in that process to where we can actually directly contact your insurance company and talk to them about what your needs going by the assessment that we do right, because we have to do like an intake evaluation, right and we see what your needs are then communicate that with insurance company. That’s important. And and oh by the way, if it’s non medical home care, people, Medicare does not pay for that. That’s right, and that’s one thing that you know, people have to be aware of because they think maybe care will cover it, but Medicare doesn’t cover non medical. The will. It will cook, Medicare will cover a little bit of respect care and it will cover home health, which is nursing care, but only to a limited degree as well. So you have to understand as well. These are these are important issues that we need to make sure that we let people know, because a lot of times there’s a misconception that that Medicare will take care of these things. And so once you do the evaluation and and everything like that, then then how are you guys involved moving forward? Just me. So we actually directly bill your insurance Company, provided that you qualify. The services that we provide. Didn’t qualify, so we take you out of the picture. Of course we send you the bill, but we just take the stress of you dealing with insurance company. Okay, so we act as the middleman between you and your insurance company. That’s great. So you don’t have to worry about as a as a you know, is it receipting our policy holder? You don’t have to front money, you don’t have to do anything. It’s like a completely handle for you. That’s correct. That’s awesome. So, if I’m a policy holder, what are some of the pitfalls that are, you know, that I need to avoid or look at if I’m purchasing a policy and launcher long term CARC hurts so some of the pitfalls. Of course we do have pitfalls with everything right. So the common mistake that I would advise that you stay away from is letting the policy holder initiate the claim because, like we say it in the beginning, they’re sitting things that are covered and some are not. So we have to know before that claim is opened what they can cover and what they can’t cover. Well, so don’t let them initiate the policy. Let us help with that, right, and then that way you understand how to properly fill out the paperwork that they get the most benefit from their policy. I’m sure that’s great. Yeah, that’s great. So, UM, how do people get if they have a policy today? Can they reach out and and talk to you about a little bit about how that works? Absolutely, will be glad to help in any way that we can give us a call. MMM or go. And now website. Okay, and and why why don’t we do that? And then we’ll get back to the interview. We’re talking to Josephine at Serengeti Care. And what is your phone number and website? So our website is www.SerengetiCare.com and our phone number is to 425.272.9272 and for everyone to spell Serengeti, it’s Serengeti just like it sounds. Now that we’ve got a few minutes left and obviously we’re talking about long term care insurance. How do you see? Let’s just go to a broad point of view. Do you see the use of Long Term Care Insurance increasing in the future? Oh, yes, absolutely, and I think it is very important if you can, to get the long term care policy because it’s going to help you in the future. Quash on the costs right care. So if I have long term care insurance now, I know it helps with home care, but what else does it cover? So it covers assisted living, it covered assisted leaving. Yeah, and it covers some people might not actually need care. They might need just like companionship. So some of US think are right. And if you have a qualifying diagnosis like you know, memory loss right or dementia, that would help push on that and cover that absolutely, absolutely. And of course, everyone assisted living. What it covers, and assisted living isn’t the whole cost of living in an assisted living community. It’s the assisted living care side. So usually what a retirement living community will do is they will charge you a base rent, plus they’ll charge you services based on how you’re assessed for the assisted living side, and that’s usually the piece that long term care covers. Just so you understand that one. That’s an important factor. Well, thanks so much, Josephine. We’re so glad you’re on on the program and we look forward to having you back here real soon. Well, thank you so much for having me. This has been a special presentation of Answers for Elders with Serengeti Care. For more information for Serengeti Care, go to SerengetiCare.com. That’s SerengetiCare.com.