As the number of Americans aged 65 and older continues to grow, so does the demand for long-term care services. Over the past few years, the meaning of long-term care has broadened to include a wide range of services, with nursing home care at one end of the spectrum and regular assistance with essential daily tasks at the other end. It's more important than ever for life and health insurance producers and financial planners to be able to meet their customers' needs by having a thorough understanding of this range of long-term care services, long-term care insurance, and long-term care partnership programs.

Designed to meet South Dakota's 8-hour training requirement for licensed producers who sell long-term care insurance, the course covers the nature of long-term care, available long-term care services and providers, long-term care insurance products, government-sponsored health care options (including Medicaid), partnership programs, alternative LTC funding options, and the ethical and suitability issues associated with long-term care products and policies. The course concludes with a chapter on South Dakota Medicaid and LTC partnership programs.

This course is specifically designed to meet the ongoing study requirement for licensed producers who have completed an initial long-term care training program and has been approved for this purpose.

Upon conclusion of this course, students will be able to:

• describe the conditions that have led to the growing need for long-term care
• explain the types of LTC providers and the services they offer
• demonstrate an understanding of the options and limitations of Medicare and Medicaid for paying for long-term care
• •outline and define the purpose, function, and application of long-term care insurance
• identify the provisions and features found in long-term care insurance policies
• explain the fundamentals of LTC partnership programs and the requirements for LTCI policies that are sold with these programs
• demonstrate an understanding of the ethics and suitability issues that surround the sale of LTC insurance
• describe the basics of South Dakota's Medicaid and LTC Partnership programs