Nursing home costs would be looming large when you attain senior citizen status. Many people are not aware of the fact that Medicare does not pay for long-term care, and nursing homes are very expensive.
If you have taken good care of yourself and you enter your senior years in good health, you may assume that you will never need long-term care. In fact, your positive decision-making could increase your longevity. The older you get, the more likely it is that you will need long-term care.
In fact, 45 percent of people who are at least 85 are suffering from Alzheimer’s disease, and this is not the only cause of incapacity.
You should certainly be aware of potential nursing home costs when you are looking ahead toward the future, because they could potentially consume all or most of what you intended to leave to your loved ones.
New York Nursing Home Costs
Genworth Financial has been doing a great deal of research into the subject of long-term care costs over an extended period of time. The results for 2015 are in, and they are not particularly encouraging.
We practice law on Long Island, and nursing home costs are particularly high in our area of the country. In the state of New York as a whole, the median annual charge for a private room in a nursing home is $136,437. Even if you were expecting to see a rather large number, this figure may be surprising to you.
A semi private room is not going to provide a solution if you are looking for a lower-cost option. This type of room is just slightly less expensive at $131,758 per year.
To drill down even further, on Long Island, the median annual charge for a semi private room is $155,125 during the current calendar year. For a private room you are looking at a median annual charge of $162,425.
When you factor in the average length of stay, the situation becomes more challenging. The average length of stay is over two years, and 10 percent of people in nursing homes remain in the facilities for at least five years.
Current nursing home costs are high, but if you need nursing home care in the future, the numbers may be considerably larger. Genworth is predicting a three percent per year increase in the cost of private rooms over the next five years.
Explore Long-Term Care Solutions
As you can see, long-term care is very expensive, and you cannot look toward Medicare for assistance. However there are long-term care solutions that can be implemented to preserve assets for the benefit of your loved ones.
If you would like to explore your options, send us a message through our contact page to schedule a free consultation: Smithtown NY Elder Law Attorneys.
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