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When planning long-term care for you or a loved one be sure to factor in where you would like to reside. Location plays a significant role in the amount you will need to save for long-term care. The median annual cost for private nursing home care varies between $57,487 to $155,125 just based on location! Although the national median cost is $87,600 according to Genworth’s Cost of Care Survey, the difference between affluent areas and areas where there is less demand for residential long-term care is astronomical.
The High Price of Nursing Home Care
Whether your long-term care costs $50,000 or $150,000, the amount is no drop in the bucket for most. Some assume it is a cost covered by regular health insurance. Medicare, however only pays for 100 days of a skilled nursing home facility stay. And only 8% of Americans over age 50 purchase specific long-term care insurance. So how are long-term care costs covered?
Two-thirds of the senior population needs some sort of long-term care; many do not pay the high costs of nursing homes. Care duties and responsibilities are often filled by a family member or by a live-in caretaker.
And what happens to those who need residential care, but cannot afford it? Medicaid is the nation’s largest funder of long-term care—it covers only seniors who are below the poverty line. This gap in long-term care funding poses an interesting challenge for policymakers.
The cost of long-term care may determine your financial planning, but it should not determine how you or an elderly loved one are treated. No matter the location or the cost, nursing homes have a duty to provide a high standard of care for their patients. Substandard care is unacceptable and should never be the price you pay for placing a loved one in a nursing home.
Call Walner Law to discuss nursing home abuse or negligence. Our nursing home abuse attorneys may not have the solution for the high cost of nursing homes in Chicago, but they will have the skill and expertise to advocate for holding nursing homes to the highest quality of care.
