What is Long-Term Care?
Long-term care refers to the type of care you need when you can no longer perform routine activities that most people don’t give a second thought. Think bathing, dressing, getting out of bed, or eating. This kind of care is usually given to people who suffer from injuries, illness or old age. This sort of care becomes “Long-Term” when it passes 90 days, which is usually the cutoff for Medicare and other similar insurance coverage.
About 70% of Americans will need some form of long-term care. Most people start receiving the care at home and around 1/3 of them will move on to begin needing the care in a nursing or assisted living facility.
Long-Term Care can look different for everyone and that makes it difficult to categorize, but the most common tend to be dietary care, social care, memory care, medical and/or skilled medical care. Dietary care refers to making sure someone is eating, whether that be bringing them groceries, making them meals, or processing meals so they’re able to eat them. Social care refers to just having someone visit and talk with someone and occasionally also refers to advocating for the person to doctors, nurses, and social workers. Memory care is used for individuals suffering from dementia or Alzheimer’s and ensures they’re safe, healthy, and happy. Medical care can be as simple as making sure someone takes their pills, doing important exercises, or going to the doctor. Skilled Medical care refers to something more complex such as administering shots, taking vitals, or performing medical tests.
As a personal example, my grandma needs long-term care after surviving lung cancer and heart surgery. She isn’t bedridden, but she needs physical therapy and can’t drive or stand for too long and sometimes needs gentle reminders. The care she receives is given by my mom, her sister, and me. Which is not uncommon. In fact, 66% of all Long-Term Care provided in the United States is done by family or friends.
Long-Term Care can also be given by professionals who do at home visits, or who work in assisted living facilities or in nursing homes. These facilities can be quite expensive as most insurance does not cover care that lasts for longer than 90 days. Long-Term Care insurance is an option, but it can be quite hard to find or qualify for.
There are a lot of reasons why Americans tend to opt for family/friends to provide Long-Term Care, surveys suggest some people prefer receiving care or feel like professional care isn’t necessary or that they don’t trust certain facilities. But ultimately, the number one barrier to professional long-term care is cost.
It is expensive! The monthly costs for in-home care, assisted living, and nursing facilities have been rising in recent years and are expected to keep rising due to the surge in baby boomers hitting their 60s. On average it costs between $6,000 to $6,600 a month to have at home care, whether that be from a homemaker or a home health aide. The average monthly cost for an Adult Daycare is $2,000, while the cost for an assisted living facility is around $5,000 a month. Depending on whether you want a private or semi-private room, a nursing home costs between $10,000 to $12,000 a month.
These costs are fairly staggering and are made worse by fees, paperwork, and the general confusion that surrounds Medicare and insurance. The best way to afford long-term care is to start planning years before you’d ever even need it, which can be hard to do given the cost of living, but it is possible. People I interviewed who need long-term care said they wish they did two things: save more money and exercise more (which is something I hear whenever I interview the older generation). I only found three people in my calls that had heard of Long-Term Care insurance and only one of them actually had it. He said it was very useful and that he used it to pay for nurses who visited him at home.
To sum it up, long-term care refers to the type of care you need when you can’t do normal daily tasks. It can be performed by friends, family, or professionals, at home, in a nursing home, or at an assisted living facility. The cost for these types of care vary but are always rising. In order to afford it, you should be considering it when budgeting for retirement or you can sign up for a Long-Term Care Insurance plan, like the one SDPEBA offers through Unum.
Predicting if you will need long-term care is tough, since anything can happen when you’re older. Family history is a good indicator, as is general health, but these aren’t perfect because, well, as we said about 7/10 people will need some form of long-term care. And since care needs differ so much, there’s no way to really know how much help you’ll need. We always suggest playing it safe and doing what you can to make sure you’re set up, but if you have any doubts, talk to a health care professional and a financial planner to be sure you’re set.
If you’re interested in learning more about our long-term care insurance plan, you can click here and read all about it. There you will find an in-depth description of the plan we offer and links to learn more. We even have an online calculator that will allow you to estimate your cost.