With the aim of providing a better solution to the rising costs of long term care today, the State of Idaho has also adopted its own Long Term Care Insurance Partnership Program in November of 2006. The program was designed with the objective of providing aid and assurance to residents for a more secured and comfortable environment when they finally reach retirement age.

Under the partnership program, a resident who has purchased a partnership policy enjoys the benefit of qualifying for Medicaid assistance without depleting all of his assets just to pay for care. With the unique feature the policy possesses, the policyholder’s personal assets will be disregarded should he or she applies for the Medicaid program.

In Idaho, partnership policies are mandated to offer a minimum daily benefit amount, a three-year minimum benefit period, and inflation protection for individuals of a younger age.

The benefit amount refers to how you want your policy to pay benefits for you at the time of application. Benefit period pertains to the amount of time a policy will pay starting from the point of claim. While, inflation protection is am additional rider in your long term care plan which adjusts benefits to keep up with the rapid increase in costs of long term care.

There are levels of inflation protection offered by LTC policies in Idaho. For individual age 61 and below, an automatic compound inflation of at least five percent is given. For those aged 61 to 75, automatic annual inflation of at least five percent, simple or compound, is offered. And, for individuals who are aged 76 and above, inflation protection is no longer required, but maybe purchased by the policyholder by choice.

Good thing about Idaho’s partnership program, it also participates in the reciprocity agreement with other states. This reciprocal agreement among states extends the asset disregard to residents who have already purchased an LTC policy in another state offering the same asset disregard feature.

Under the reciprocity agreement, Medicaid applicants will receive a dollar-for-dollar asset disregard, and amounts equal to the benefits received under a partnership policy will be exempted from Medicaid estate recovery. In term of Medicaid eligibility, resident of Idaho are required to fulfil a set of requirements to determine eligibility.