Long Term Care Insurance: Your Home Care Agency’s Next Revenue Opportunity

If your agency isn’t already accepting Long Term Care Insurance as a payment option, buckle in and prepare to learn more! 

There are 8 million LTCI policies that have been bought in the US, and only 300,000 of them have been activated.

That’s 3%. Or, flipped, this is a 97% market share opportunity for you and your team to tap into. 

What’s more, is that of those 8 million, 4 million qualify to be able to use those benefits. Many policyholders think that they have to be bed-bound or in worse health in order to use their policies. 

These are people who made a conscious choice earlier on in life that they wanted to ensure that they could get the care they need, when they need it. This is your chance to help them.

How to get started

Before you start offering this as a payer source, make sure that you take the time to understand what you have to do to process and submit claims, and how to explain your involvement to families—beyond your regular spiel. 

When you’re able to do the below with confidence, start adding this to your list of payer sources:

• Understand how to read a Long Term Care Insurance policy
• Understand the benefits that are offered by a policy
• Make recommendations based on eligibility and need
• Advocate for each client
• Partner with the insurance carrier for payment

Read on to understand the opportunity that lies ahead.

The opportunity for families with your agency

There are a few challenges that stand in the way of most families to activate a long term care insurance policy, and the great thing is, you have an opportunity to make an impact. 

1. Most people don’t know their loved one even has a policy. When you are meeting with new families during an assessment or inquiry call, make it a point to ask. Beyond that, you can put together a card that outlines some questions for them to ask a loved one that may help them recollect if they bought one or not (or to identify what to look for). 
2. Most families don’t know what policy their loved one has. Take the time to walk the family through the policy, what their waiting period is, what the daily benefit is, and if they’re eligible for other coverage like durable medical equipment, etc…
3. Healthcare professionals don’t really understand LTCI either. Lucky for you, you can be the ultimate source of truth to educate and motivate other healthcare providers to ask the right questions and help their patients at the end of the day. 

WATCH THE WEBINAR RECORDING: Marketing Moments Episode 7: 

Making The Most of Long Term Care

Make a Long Term Care Insurance marketing plan

You won’t be able to make large changes overnight, but you can take the first step by making a plan. It starts in increments. You can start by asking on inquiry calls if someone or their loved one has an LTCI policy, if they’ve used it before, and what they’re eligible for. 

Next, you could try adding a page on your website or add a bullet on your marketing collateral that promotes that you accept Long Term Care Insurance (LTCI) policies. 

Important pieces of information to arm yourself with as you market this payer source to other referral partners and families:

• Many families may opt to not use benefits because of the long-term consequences of paying. More than half of policyholders will die before they ever use any of these benefits, and 70% of policies end because the person passed away. For anyone that has a policy, make sure that they reap the benefits of paying those premiums. 
• Help clients avoid the HRHR cycle. Care often repeats itself in cycles of: Hospital. Rehab. Home. Readmit. This cycle indicates that there is often a lack of adequate support in the home. With the proper resources in place, like an in-home caregiver, they can be diligent advocates and detectives for their clients. They can, for example, remove hallway hazards and ensure that medications are taken on time. 

Make long term care insurance your agency’s secret weapon.

Long Term Care Insurance (LTCI) is a huge opportunity that is going to increase with time, as more adults turn to plan ahead for aging in place. 

Start by preparing your team for this shift and how your agency can add this as a payer source. 

Then, start thinking about various education and marketing opportunities that can position your agency as every family’s home care agency of choice when they need it. What step is your agency going to take toward diversifying your payer mix?