Under the provisions of Deficit Reduction Act (DRA) of 2005, states in the country are encouraged to develop and enact LTC partnership programs which will cater to the LTC needs of the majority of the United States citizens. Because of this, on October 12, 2007, the Kansas long term care partnership program was announced at a news conference, making way for more Kansans to properly plan for their future.

The states’ partnership programs aim to provide the residents more flexible and cheaper alternatives to own an LTC plan that they can use in the future without stressing their financial income and budget. Also, the program aspires to help Medicaid reduce its expenses for long term care that amounts to almost billions of dollars every year.

Partnership policies are almost the same as policies acquired from private insurance companies. They also provide LTC services and facilities that are needed by the insured individuals. The services and facilities that these policies offer include, but not limited to, rehabilitation and therapy of the insured individual, adult day care or nursing homes, other medical facilities and equipment, and professional care and attention from licensed medical practitioners and skilled caregivers.

The medical professionals’ job is to make sure that the policy owners get the right kind of treatment and care that they really need. They assist them in almost every aspect of their everyday lives, from helping them perform basic daily activities such as walking, eating, and taking a bath, to helping them take their prescribed medicines at the right time with the right dosage.

Aside from these benefits, the policy owner of a Kansas long term care partnership also enjoys the Dollar-for Dollar asset protection feature and reciprocity standards that his policy offers. These two features are both unique and are exclusively packaged for partnership plans only.

The Dollar-for-Dollar asset protection lets the insured individual to keep a dollar of his assets for every dollar that his partnership policy pays out in benefits. These will then disregarded by Medicaid when determining his eligibility to receive Medicaid benefits. But owning a partnership policy does not guarantee the person automatic eligibility in Medicaid because he still has to meet the standards and requirements set by Medicaid in order for him to start receiving benefits.

On the other hand, the reciprocity standards make way for the persons to transfer to another state without needing to purchase another partnership policy in the state where he decided to live. This agreement lets the partnership policies bought in Kansas to still be used and valid in any other state that participates in the reciprocity agreement of the partnership program.

Some other features and benefits that partnership policies provide are almost the same with the other LTC policies bought from private insurance companies. These include the minimum daily benefit amount, minimum benefit coverage period, and certain levels of inflation protection.

The levels of inflation protection may differ between the private and partnership policies but both of them based the levels on the age of the person when he acquired his policy. For Kansas long term care partnership, the younger age of plan acquisition, the higher level of inflation protection it would get. Policies bought from age 76 and above do not require inflation protection but the person may opt to purchase one if offered by his insurance provider.