“Average LTC policy claim amounts for assisted living top other settings,” by Lois A. Bowers, McKnight’s Senior Living “Average individual long-term care insurance claim amounts for care in assisted living facilities are much higher than claim amounts for home care or care in nursing facilities, according to the 2019 Milliman Long Term Care Insurance Survey. Individual claims for all assisted living participants averaged $93,635, compared with $43,467 for home care and $63,751 for nursing facilities, according to the latest data, reported in Broker World. Individual claims for care in assisted living facilities are “consistently high,” the authors said. They offered four
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“LTC leads hot healthcare market in first half of 2019,” by Kimberly Marselas, McKnight’s LTC News “The changing face of long-term care continues to drive merger and acquisition activity for the fifth straight year, according to two new reports. ​Deal volume involving long-term care and assisted living properties jumped 7.3% in the second quarter of 2019 versus the same period last year, according to PricewaterhouseCoopers’ U.S. Health Services Deals Insights. … Its analysts said the sustained growth was influenced by numerous factors, including capital availability; interest rates; regulation, policy and tax reform impact; inpatient volumes pressure and high costs; cross-industry
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“HHS Administrator Verma Issues Remarks at Better Medicare Alliance Medicare Advantage Summit,” InsuranceNewsNet “Let’s consider the Medicare fee-for-service program, the model for the public option and Medicare for All proposals. Medicare’s payment policies have distorted the market. We have incredibly talented public servants administering the Medicare program and I am honored to work with them, but Government price setters can’t possibly access all the information in the market, leading them inevitably to set rates either too high or too low from time to time, leading to surpluses and shortages. … What works in the Medicare program is Medicare Advantage –
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“Life-LTC Hybrid Sales Level Off: LIMRA,” by Allison Bell, ThinkAdvisor “LIMRA found that the number of ‘individual life insurance combination’ policies sold in the United States increased 2% in 2018, to 404,000. The total amount of new premium revenue associated with those combination policy sales fell 2%, to $4.3 billion. In 2017, LIMRA reported an 18% increase in the amount of new premium revenue associated with new combination policy sales. …  A copy of the LIMRA life-LTC combination products survey summary is available here.”   LTC Comment (from Stephen A. Moses, President, Center for Long-Term Care Reform): More policies, less premium.
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“Survey: Where assisted living is most expensive, least expensive,” by Lois A. Bowers, McKnight’s Senior Living “Average monthly assisted living costs nationwide range from $4,136 for a studio apartment to $5,148 for a two-bedroom unit, but costs vary greatly based on location, according to the results of Lincoln Financial Group’s annual What Care Costs study, released Tuesday. … The whatcarecosts.com/Lincoln website includes long-term-care cost information for home health aides, assisted living communities and skilled nursing facilities for states and metropolitan areas across the country. Data can be sorted by type of care and geography. To see the data, enter the code ‘Lincoln’
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