Long-term care for elderly people is provided by the LTC institutions initiated by the government through the US department of health and human services. The services are provided by a health practitioner with the help of the nurses that care for the elderly in these institutions. The nurses have the task of providing health care services and medical care as pertains to the long-term care service guidelines for the elderly. According to records about long-term care, most users are normally women as they have a longer life expectancy than men. Thus, they end up spending their later lives in LTC homes for the elderly. The nurses receive their salaries and benefits from the department of health and human services which is tasked with managing these elderly nursing homes. Each patient in the elderly nursing home is required to provide a health insurance cover to be used as a monetary benefit while he or she spends time at the facility. Elderly nursing homes require helpers who assist patients in moving around, feeding, and providing drugs to them as prescribed by the health practitioners as most of them are disabled (Getzen, & Bruce, 112).
Long-term care, which is abbreviated as LTC, refers to humanitarian assistance for the elderly being offered in the United States. The program is geared towards helping elderly people who may be suffering from different ailments. The program was instituted by the agency for healthcare research and quality in the united states by the US department of health and human services. The institution is geared towards providing elderly people with affordable health care and monitoring their lives on an individual case. Characteristics of long-term care facilities in the country include, most of the patients in the facilities being women. Another characteristic is that the vast majority of the users receive informal care. It can also be noted that the elderly nursing home residents are mostly disabled. The characteristics of these facilities do not limit the market for LTC insurance in that most users had subscribed to a health insurance cover in their working years. LTC insurance is useful in indemnifying individuals who may suffer risks associated with their health. Such individuals can find medical care services without incurring high medical bills.
The health of an individual in most cases influences the life expectancy of such an individual. In countries where the health care services are affordable and readily available the life expectancy of the citizens goes up. As people grow older, their health deteriorates. In this case, their bodies become weak and thus fail to fight diseases effectively. Weakened body systems become costly to manage as people will need an increased number of health care facilities due to their susceptibility to diseases. As people live longer their health-wise deteriorates and thus will spend much on medical care. Living longer does not necessarily mean one is healthy. In this case, the definition of health is the ability of the body to function normally without the aid of drugs or other medical care services. As people get old, they need medical care quite often. In this case, they will spend a lot of money on the purchase of these medical drugs to help fight off disease and other ailments in the body. Most LTC home patients are disabled thus they require great health care services. In this case, they end up spending more as they get older. Medical care expenses rise as one’s health keeps deteriorating over the years as one is required to purchase more drugs to keep the body strong and fight off ailments (Paolucci, 23).
Works Cited
Getzen, Thomas E., and Bruce Allen. Health Care Economics. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley, 2007. Print.
Paolucci, Francesco. Health Care Financing and Insurance: Options for Design. Berlin: Springer, 2011. Print.