Beatitudes Community

Are You ALTCS Curious?

The Arizona Long Term Care System (ALTCS) is designed to help people pay for long term care. Part of the Arizona Cost Containment System, AHCCCS (pronounced “access”), ALTCS (pronounced “all-tex”) provides for both children with substantial needs as well as older adults. ALTCS is part of the Medicaid system, and it has very specific and financial qualifying guidelines.

To qualify medically, applicants will be interviewed by a nurse or worker who will come to your apartment. The interviewer will ask for a list of current medications and recent medical records. Questions are designed to evaluate activities of daily living (“Can you dress yourself? How long does it take?”). They may ask about recent falls, as well as orientation to time and place. In order to qualify medically an applicant's level of need must be determined to be at or near a nursing home level of care. I often observe these interviews on Campus and have found the interviewers to be friendly and helpful.

While the majority of people who receive ALTCS do live in assisted living or higher level of care, an ALTCS designation does not mandate setting.  If an individual lives at large in the community, or in an independent living apartment here on Campus, they can still qualify for ALTCS services. However, in these cases ALTCS will provide (pay for) caregivers to assist with needs; these caregivers can be from an agency or someone of your own choosing, including your spouse. If you are in independent living, ALTCS will not help pay for rent. If you live in assisted living, they will.

The second qualifying category is financial. Income and assets are evaluated to see if a person meets the qualifying standard. If you have over $2,000 in a checking account, or earn more than $2,250 per month (these numbers change for married couples) you will not appear to be financially eligible. However, the financial guidelines can get complicated. For example, if you earn over the monthly limit, but meet other criteria, you can have an income-only trust set up that will allow you to qualify. It can pay in the long run to have your application handled by experienced ALTCS planning professionals or elder law attorneys. Please feel free to contact me at x16117 if you have questions about ALTCS.*

Author Info: Beatitudes Campus Verified Administrator
At the of Beatitudes Campus is the vision of of the Beatitudes pastors and congregation members to create a better alternative for older adults than the nursing homes of the early 1960s. The type of community they imagined was the of its kind in Arizona. Beatitudes Campus is proud to continue the legacy of our founders, by being a leader in the field of aging services for over 50 years.

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