South Carolina Nursing Home Abuse Lawyers
Recently, the Metlife Mature Market Institute released its annual survey of the cost of long-term care services, including nursing homes, assisted living facilities, adult day programs, and home care. And the results were anything but cheap. Overall, provider costs rose far faster than the rate of inflation. The only exceptions were home care services, where costs were unchanged from 2010 to 2011.
On average, nursing home costs rose from $229 a day for a private room in a nursing home to $239, or more than $87,000 per year. Adult day program costs also rose from $67 to $70, as well as the average costs for assisted living which increased 5.6 percent from $3,293 to $3,477 a month, or more than $42,000 a year. These expenses are typically paid out of pocket or covered by long-term care insurance and medicaid.
Even with the cost increase, assisted living remains a far less expensive approach to elder care. For patients with dementia, an assisted living facility costs around $55,000 compared to a private room care in a nursing home facility which could cost up to $92,000.
However, assisted living costs can increase significantly if additional care is needed for the patient. Helping a patient bathe can tack on an additional $307 per month, care for other personal care such as toileting, transportation or incontinence can increase the cost $530 per month; helping manage a patient’s medication(s) increases the cost by $370.00 per month.
Adult day programs run about $70-a-day, a relatively cost effective alternative though they are still underused.
There is also a wide variation of costs for long-term care services among individual states. For example, in Alaska nursing home costs total about $655-a-day for a private room, compared to costs in Louisiana which came out around $140-a-day. Similarly, in Louisiana, home health aides cost about $9 an hour, while they cost $19 an hour in New Hampshire.
Although these costs continue to rise, many aging Americans have not budgeted for and/or obtained long-term care costs or insurance. One half of Americans aged 65 and older have less than $55,000 in savings; only about seven million have private long-term care insurance. Similarly, an attempt like the CLASS Act, an initiative to establish a national long-term care insurance program, has been abandoned by the Obama Administration. These paid services are becoming too costly and unobtainable for many, who have no other options but to rely or friends and family.
If you are faced with placing your loved one in a nursing home, there are many South Carolina Nursing Home resources available.
If your loved one has been injured while under the care of a nursing home, contact the Strom Law Firm, LLC nursing home lawyers today for a free consultation to discuss your best possible course of action. We offer flexible appointment times and will aggressively fight for justice.
