There is a huge difference between an assisted living facility and a nursing home. I think a lot of folks confuse the two.
I tend to believe that by using an assisted living facility you may be able to really limit the time in the more expensive nursing home.
If you are counting on your LTC to cover the cost of a facility, you have to "proove" that you need help. Here is the first round of arm wrestling with the insurance company, and many folks report difficulty with this stage.
Yes, this is all very true.
The case of my late mother went something like this.
She had a Genworth policy that paid $79/day for assisted living and $158 /day for skilled nursing. She had end stage COPD but lived OK at home until she was about 94 when she just couldn't walk very far without losing her breath, but was otherwise very healthy.
At that point, it would have been nice to either have her live with us, or go to an ALF. My wife and mom did not really get along too well (unfortunately), so reluctantly the best choice would have been an ALF. However, at that point, mom would have had to self pay as she was not sick enough to meet the Genworth criteria. But , all of us being frugal, we just let left mom home ( with visits every couple of days- we were an hour away)until she had a freak house wiring fire (not her fault) and she came to live with us until we figured out what to do. Within a couple of days, she got the first bout of pneumonia and was in the hospital. After that, she was in nursing home rehab (paid by Medicare).
By then we started the claims process as she was starting to lose physical ability. We really wanted to put her in an ALF as the cost would have been completely covered by Genworth. She was in an ALF for 3 days and then got pneumonia again, so back to the hospital. Once out of the hospital it was rehab/skilled nursing (again, Medicare paid), but she was really past the point of being minimally supervised as at an ALF facility. So, eventually we got Genworth to pay for the skilled nursing, but we were going to be co-paying about $80/day for what could have been months or even years.
Mom had good days and bad days at the nursing home, but she was getting weaker and about a week ago she slipped and broke her hip. Despite valiant efforts at the hospital (they fixed her hip), she developed c diff bacteria and urinary tract infection, and with the weak lungs, we just let her pass away painlessly a few days ago.
I thought the nursing home was something of a "hellhole". The nurses were indifferent, IMO and it would have been a very depressing experience, for me anyway. But my mom never complained (never, ever about anything, until she broke her hip). But it wasn't just that particular nursing home as we had visited all of them in the area and there was little difference.
I have to believe she would not have broken her hip had she been with us. That is not to say that she would have lived longer, though, as we might not have been able to know when she was getting pneumonia, or needed medication or doctoring that was available at the nursing home.