Crisis Planning
A hospital discharge, a facility decision, or home care that's already started. Assets need protecting fast.
See the Crisis path →
45+ Years in Long-Term Care Insurance
There are ten ways to fund
There are ten ways to fund
long-term care.
Most people know one.
Long-term care insurance, Medicare, Medicaid, VA benefits, annuities, trusts, private savings — each is a real, legitimate funding pillar. The question isn't which one is "best." It's which ones actually apply to your age, health, assets, timing, and state. Start with a free assessment, not a sales pitch.
Who We Help
Long-term care funding looks different depending on how much time you have. Pick your stage.
Transition Planning
The signs are here, but not urgent yet. Time to review coverage, directives, and the funding stack.
See the Transition path →Advance Planning
Nothing has changed yet, but you want the options mapped out before you need them.
See the Advance path →
The Core Framework
The 10 Funding Pillars, at a glance
Not mutually exclusive — most families combine two or three. Read the full breakdown of each, or skip straight to the assessment for a shortlist ranked to your situation.
Traditional LTC Insurance
Medically underwritten indemnity or reimbursement coverage that pays a daily or monthly benefit once you need help with daily activities.
Hybrid Life / LTC (Asset-Based)
A single-premium or limited-pay life insurance policy with an LTC rider — if care is never needed, the death benefit passes to your family.
LTC Annuity
A deferred annuity with a long-term-care benefit multiplier — simplified or no health underwriting, funded from an existing qualified account.
Medicare & Skilled-Need Coverage
Covers up to 100 days of skilled nursing after a qualifying hospital stay, limited home health, and hospice — not custodial long-term care.
Medicaid (Baseline)
The nation's largest single payer of long-term care, covering roughly six in ten nursing home residents nationally — with strict, state-specific asset and income tests.
Advance Medicaid Planning
Legal techniques — irrevocable trusts, Lady Bird deeds, gifting programs — executed 5+ years before care is needed, so the 60-month lookback expires cleanly.
Crisis Planning / Half-a-Loaf
What elder-law attorneys use when care is already needed and there was no advance plan — Medicaid Compliant Annuities, promissory notes, spousal refusal, personal-services contracts.
VA Aid & Attendance
A monthly pension benefit add-on for wartime-era veterans and surviving spouses who need help with activities of daily living — chronically under-claimed.
Private Pay
Self-funding care from savings, investments, or home equity. Sequencing — which assets to spend first and which to protect — is the real work.
The Home
The decision about what happens to the family home — sell it, keep it, borrow against it, or convert it — is its own funding pillar, not a footnote to Private Pay.
The Fastest Way to Know
Twelve questions.
Twelve questions.
A shortlist tailored to your situation.
The Journey Assessment asks about your situation, timing, health, assets, home, and veteran status — then tells you which pillars are actually open and which ones aren't worth reading about.
- Under four minutes. No email required to see your results.
- Rules out pillars that won't work, so you stop wasting time.
- Surfaces state-specific advantages — Florida's Lady Bird deed, spousal refusal states, income-cap states.
- Delivers a report you can download, print, and share with family.
Who's Behind This
45+ years in long-term care insurance, one plain-language framework.
George A. Mellendorf spent his career in the long-term care insurance industry before becoming a real estate agent and educator in Southwest Florida. This site distills decades of industry knowledge into ten plain-language funding pillars — no jargon, no fear tactics.
Read George's story →