CLTCF's LTC Academy

The Center for Long-Term Care Financing's

LTC Academy: Course Catalogue

(This catalogue contains descriptions of courses on long-term care financing history and policy suitable for audiences of long-term care insurers, providers, consumers and policy-makers.)

Introduction

Since our founding in April 1998, the Center for Long-Term Care Financing has offered a wide range of public addresses through our Speakers Bureau. You can review those traditional offerings on the Center's website at http://www.centerltc.org/speakers/index.htm. Revenue from public speaking has been a small, but critical source of financial support for the Center's operations. We hope to increase the Center's income from this source by expanding the range of programs we offer and by catering these programs to the needs and desires of corporate sponsors.

Lately, we have enjoyed considerable success with a new kind of presentation that qualifies more aptly as a short "course" or "conference" than as a lecture or speech. Individual companies and organizations have invited us to conduct or participate in special programs that meet their training and marketing needs without compromising our purely objective, nonproprietary content. The feedback from these events has been excellent, and we've decided to offer similar, adaptable, model programs to a wider audience of potential sponsors.

Center staff will assist sponsors of the following programs to publicize the events, to obtain continuing education credits for attendees, and to offset some or all of the sponsorship cost through attendance fees. Oftentimes, larger corporate donors will share the cost of a program with an individual or small company sponsor. Any receipts in excess of expenses will accrue to the sponsor, as will any revenue shortfalls. The Center for Long-Term Care Financing's honorarium is a flat fee (which includes travel expenses) and will be used 100% to support the Center's nonprofit charitable activities.

Disclaimer

The Center for Long-Term Care Financing is a 501(c)(3) charitable nonprofit organization. We do not market, sell, or promote long-term care insurance or any other commercial products. The Center's mission is to "ensure quality long-term care for all Americans." We pursue this mission by encouraging public policy that targets scarce public welfare resources to the genuinely needy while creating incentives for everyone else to plan early and save, invest or insure for the risk of long-term care. Thus, we see private long-term care insurance as a private, for-profit tool that helps preserve public funding for the poor. Inasmuch as the poor and their representatives often lack the resources to support the Center's advocacy on their behalf, we actively seek financial support from long-term care insurers and providers who also benefit from our initiatives. These private for-profit and not-for-profit companies have both the reason and the means to help the Center for Long-Term Care Financing pursue our mission.

Courses and Conferences

*Courses #1 through #3 are targeted to the LTC insurance community; Courses # 4 and #5 are aimed at the whole range of stakeholders in the long-term care financing issue; Course #6 is targeted toward LTC providers (home care, assisted living or nursing homes); and Course #7 is designed for a joint meeting of providers and insurers.

1. How to Avoid the Long-Term Care Trap

($5,000 honorarium, half-day event)

This introductory course is for consumers and their agent/broker hosts. Its purpose is to educate people about long-term care and convince them they need to plan ahead to avoid the LTC Trap. The program begins with a seventy-five-minute presentation by a national expert on long-term care, e.g., Stephen Moses, President of the Center for Long-Term Care Financing. Following this objective, non-proprietary presentation and a short break, consumers may join roundtable discussions chaired by producers who will explain their long-term care insurance products. Mr. Moses will remain during the roundtables as an unbiased, third-party resource to field questions, provide answers, and offer guidance. This event could be marketed as a "consumer awareness" or "customer appreciation" program, or both.

Sponsorship: We anticipate that one large broker, several small brokers, or six or more individual agents will sponsor this event and share the planning, publicity, and the honorarium. The Center for Long-Term Care Financing will provide print and electronic media outreach and content for a brochure/mailer announcing the program.

2. LTC Intensive for Producers

($5,000 honorarium, half-day event)

This graduate seminar is for experienced agents and brokers only. Its purpose is (1) to explain the hidden reasons that keep people from buying LTC insurance, (2) to explode the myths that inhibit sales, and (3) to equip producers with a whole new armory of principles and concepts to help protect the public from LTC risk. The program includes three hours of educational and entertaining lecture, extensive handouts, a free copy for all participants of the Center for Long-Term Care Financing's study "The Myth of Unaffordability: How Most Americans Should, Could and Would Buy Private Long-Term Care Insurance," and plenty of time for questions and answers. This is not a course on sales techniques or "How to Sell LTCI." Many fine training programs of that kind are available in the marketplace and we encourage producers to increase their knowledge and competency by taking them.

Sponsorship: We anticipate that one large broker, several small brokers, or six or more individual agents will sponsor this event and share the planning, publicity, and the honorarium. The Center for Long-Term Care Financing will provide print and electronic media outreach, content for a brochure/mailer announcing the program, and documentation (agenda and instructors bona fides) to apply for continuing education credits.

3. LTC Connections Conference

(Courses #1 and #2 in an all-day program for $7,500 total)

We recommend beginning this daylong event with Course #2 (the LTC intensive for producers) in the morning or afternoon and following up with Course #1 (the consumer program for agents and prospects) in the afternoon or evening. This format enables agents and brokers to apply the principles and concepts learned in the educational program to the challenge of helping prospects work through the decision of whether or not to buy, after the consumer program.

Sponsorship: Same as for courses #1 and #2.

4. LTC Leadership Conference

($10,000 honorarium, full-day event)

This is an all-day event to which sponsors and the Center for Long-Term Care Financing will invite all state and local stakeholders in the long-term care service delivery and financing issue. The objective is to educate the attendees and promote consensus on good public policy to solve the long-term care financing challenge. Instruction will be provided by Center President Stephen Moses and Executive Director David Rosenfeld. Sponsors of this event will receive highly positive publicity and exposure to key, statewide policymakers. The task of locating and inviting appropriate attendees falls to the sponsor, but the Center for Long-Term Care Financing will be a resource to help identify and locate appropriate invitees.

Invitees might include, but would not be limited to: the State Governor and staff; key state legislators and staff; the Insurance Commissioner and staff; insurance industry representatives including agents, brokers, carriers and trade associations; provider representatives including home care, assisted living, nursing homes and their trade associations; long-term care financiers; Medicaid agency staff including executives, eligibility experts, and field workers; financial advisers of the elderly including attorneys, CPAs and financial planners; business interests such as the Chamber of Commerce; senior advocates; elder law attorneys; geriatric care managers; germane foundations and grantors; and last, but not least, interested members of the public. Significant coverage by the print and electronic media is expected.

Continuing education credits may be appropriate for the insurance, long-term care provider, and financial adviser attendees. If the sponsor wishes to charge for the event and/or seek approval of CE credits, the Center for Long-Term Care Financing will assist by providing content description and speaker bios and bona fides.

Sponsorship: For this event, we recommend that local insurance and provider trade associations join forces with leading agents, brokers and providers (home care, assisted living and nursing homes) in the locality to sponsor the event, share the cost, coordinate the activities, stir up the media coverage, and promote attendance of their clients, prospects and the public. Sponsors of this event might include state chapters of NAHU (National Association of Health Underwriters), NAIFA (National Association of Insurance and Financial Advisers), AHCA (the American Health Care Association), AAHSA (the American Association of Homes and Services for the Aging), ALFA (the Assisted Living Federation of America), corporate and individual members of each of these organizations.

5. LTC Solutions Marathon

($20,000 honorarium, full week)

Combine all of the events described above, repeated more than once in multiple cities if necessary, with an all-out, week-long media blitz on the importance of planning for long-term care access and financing. The Center for Long-Term Care Financing will assist sponsors to attract the attention and interest of print and electronic media to the week's programs. We will send a press release to local media and follow up with personal contacts. Center President Stephen Moses will conduct a press conference early in the week and give interviews on and off the air to as many reporters as show interest.

6. Long-Term Care Service Delivery and Financing: How We Got into this Mess and What We'll Have to Do to Get Out of It

($5,000 honorarium, half-day event)

This program is for long-term care providers (home care, assisted living, and/or nursing home providers). In the first half, Center for Long-Term Care Financing President Stephen Moses explains the history of long-term care service delivery and financing in the United States since the passage of Medicare and Medicaid in 1965. In the second half, he explains why and how well intentioned, but ill-conceived public policy incentives have led to serious problems of access, quality, reimbursement, discrimination and institutional bias in America's long-term care system. The program concludes with the description and a general discussion of the Center for Long-Term Care Financing's innovative public policy proposal "LTC Choice," which is designed to solve these problems. All participants will receive a copy of the Center's groundbreaking study "LTC Choice: A Simple, Cost-Free Solution to the Long-Term Care Financing Puzzle."

Sponsorship: Sponsors for this event might include the state chapters of long-term care provider associations (AHCA, AAHSA, and ALFA) and their corporate and individual members.

7. LTC Summit Meeting for Statewide Providers and Insurers

($10,000 honorarium, full-day event)

Rationale: The long-term care provider and insurance industries have much to gain from a better understanding of each other’s businesses, a common analytical approach to long-term care financing issues, and—ultimately—shared public policy objectives and coordinated action to achieve them. Yet, most of the principals in both industries do not perceive their common interests for a variety of reasons including perceptions of conflicting goals, crisis-induced professional myopia, and, at times, mutual distrust.

While it is true the provider and insurance industries have many divergent superficial interests, there is an underlying common goal that must be brought to the fore and pursued if either industry intends to remain financially viable beyond the next several years. To wit, the future of both the provider and insurance industries depends on a greater role for private financing and reduced dependency on inadequate government reimbursement. All of the more superficial interests of these two groups—which may or may not conflict—pale in significance. To date, however, there has been no mechanism for bringing industry representatives together to explore and overcome barriers to communication and cooperation in pursuit of a unified front. The Center for Long-Term Care Financing’s LTC Summit would be the necessary catalyst to establish a dialogue and foster further progress, with the Center in the role of neutral facilitator.

Structure: We envision an all-day event to which sponsors and the Center for Long-Term Care Financing would invite representatives from the long-term care insurance and provider industries. The objective of the event is three-fold: (1) to demonstrate how the insurance and provider industries can collaborate to their mutual benefit; (2) to promote consensus on public policy objectives; and (3) to introduce the Center for LTC Financing and its analysis of long-term care financing and public policy.

The day-long program would have two parts: a series of formal presentations in the morning and break-out sessions in the afternoon. The morning session would begin with remarks from a well-known guest speaker followed by a presentation by Center for Long-Term Care Financing President Stephen Moses. Presentations from one representative of each industry would then lead into a moderated panel with insurance and provider representatives in various professional roles/levels. The afternoon break-out sessions would be designed to elicit attendees’ feedback and recommendations for collaborative action. The results would be synthesized into a post-Summit report for widespread distribution among all LTC stakeholders.

Insurance industry invitees could include agents, brokers, carriers and trade association representatives. Provider industry invitees could include home care, assisted living, nursing home, and trade association representatives. Important outside interests may also be able to attend, depending on the consensus of program sponsors. Such attendees could include elected officials, Medicaid agency staff, financial advisers of the elderly including CPAs and financial planners, business interests such as the Chamber of Commerce, senior advocates, elder law attorneys, geriatric care managers, and media.

Sponsorship: Same as for Courses #4 and #5. Sponsors of the LTC Summit Meeting would receive highly positive publicity within the long-term care community as well as exposure to media and key policymakers (as invited guests or as post-Summit contacts). The task of locating and inviting appropriate attendees falls to the sponsors, but the Center for Long-Term Care Financing would be a resource to help identify and locate appropriate invitees. If sponsors wish to charge for the event and/or seek approval of CE credits, the Center for Long-Term Care Financing would assist by providing content description and speaker bios and bona fides. This event may also have exhibit booths for which exhibitors could be charged a fee by sponsors.