The Cost of Long Term Care

Tue, 12 March 2024  |  healthcare 

According to Genworth's Cost of Care Survey 2023, the cost of long-term care services grew for all provider types and climbed more significantly for specific settings. The costs of homemaker services and home health aides saw the biggest expense increases. The primary causes of the rise in the cost of care services are inflation and the scarcity of qualified caregivers.

Since 2004, Genworth and CareScout, a fully owned subsidiary of Genworth Financial, Inc., have collaborated to perform the Cost of Care Survey. The survey was redesigned with improved methodology and new questions on care options, cost drivers, and person-centered care, in response to the COVID-19 epidemic and changes in the long-term care sector.

According to Jamala Arland, President and CEO of Genworth U.S. Life Insurance, "understanding long-term care options and the costs associated with care are critical first steps toward being prepared for whatever you want your aging journey to look like." "That is even more true as the Cost of Care Survey celebrates its 20th anniversary this year than it was when we first began this body of research."

According to the 2023 survey, long-term care service expenditures have gone up in the following ways since 2022:

The nationwide median cost of assisted living facilities grew by 1.4% to $64,200 annually.  A home health aide's yearly median cost has risen by 10.0% to $75,500. This cost covers "hands-on" personal assistance with tasks like eating, dressing, and taking a shower.  The typical annual cost of homemaker services, which include help with "hands-off" duties like cleaning, cooking, and running errands, has gone up 7.1% to $68,600.  While the cost of a private room in a nursing home jumped 4.9% to $116,800, the national median cost of a semi-private room in a skilled nursing facility increased 4.4% to $104,000.


According to Arland, "we saw increases between 1% and 10% across facility types for this year's survey." "Although this maintains the upward trend observed in the previous surveys, we are actively examining the data to identify patterns and will disseminate our findings in the coming months."

The primary cause of assisted living facility cost rises was inflation.  According to this year's data, expenses have increased, although not as much as they have in prior years. In particular, assisted living institutions had a total increase in costs from 2021 to 2023 of 18.9%, but only 1.4% increase from 2022 to 2023. According to Arland, this is probably because of stabilizing post-pandemic housing market trends5 and inflation.   “There is increased demand for skilled workers in the long-term care space, as 10,000 Baby Boomers turn 65 every day until 20306 and seven out of ten of them are likely to need long-term care services and support at some point.”
 

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