Information from the Website Angelfire.com
For most of us, Medicaid will be our only option for financing nursing home care and then will do so only after taking everything we have. A 1996 law makes it illegal to shift assets to qualify for Medicaid and protect what you own like a house or any money that you have.
Most financial planners recommend that long term care be purchased in your late 50’s or early 60’s (I don't know about you but that is later than I thought). Premiums are based on your health, age and the plan you purchase. You must make three main decisions: how much do you want the insurance to pay per day towards nursing home care, how long can you afford to be there before the benefits kicks, and how long you wish the benefit period to be(the number of years the benefits would be paid keeping in mind the average stay in a nursing home is 2 ½ to three years)
That is something to think about.
Some interesting stats from Rubins.com
The cost of caring for a disabled older adult in the community has been estimated, according to an article in Gerontologist (Harrow et al 1995), as $9600 while institutional care was estimated by Spillman et al, 1995, at $30000. (another site that I looked at said $50,000) I guess it depends on the kind of care someone needs in the community because 24 hour a day care at $8.00 an hour would be close to $70,000. Which I guess explains why medicaid pays for nursing homes but not total in-home care.
"While only twelve percent of nursing home residents are between 65-74, 45% are over 85 years of age. It is estimated that anyone over 65 years of age will have a 43% chance of spending some time in a nursing home. About 24% of these individuals will spend less than a year in residence at a nursing home."
Interesting information for those of us don't live in the same area as our parents from the Rubins website:
"The costs continue to rise steeply for "long distance elder care". In a study done by the MetLife Mature Markets Institute, Westport, Ct. and the National Institute for Caregiving, a Bethesda, Md. nonprofit it was estimated that long-distance caregivers average about $392 a month, compared to $196 seven years ago."
"The expenses include travel, medicine, phone bills, medical supplies, meals and home maintenance. An estimated seven million Americans are long-distance caregivers. A long-distance caregiver is defined as someone who care from afar for a chronically ailing person. Among the 80% if the long-distance caregivers who are employed, 44% have rearranged their work schedules. Thirty-six % missed days of work, with an average of 20 work hours a month lost to caregiving duties."
Depressing stuff:
About 1.5 million Americans live in nursing homes. About 70% of people with dementia die in nursing homes. There are approximately 18,000 nursing homes in the US. 2/3rds are for profit and 55% are chains. 50% of nursing home residents have no close living relative and 60% have no visitors. (this makes me want to cry)
Consumer Reports says that non-profit nursing homes that are not part of large chains tend to provide the best level of nursing care.
Let me finish by saying that working with senior citizens I see that having children (daughters or sons) is no guarantee that there will be someone to look after you in your old age. It may not go along with our code of ethics but some of these adult children need to be grabbed by the shoulders and shaken briskly. "Wake up, this is your mother and she needs you, would a phone call every other day kill you"
Sara
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5 comments:
Not sure if you have read any of my blog but I and some of my other siblings are caring for my home bound mother. We did have to make the choice to either care for her at home or place her in a nursing home. The problem with the nursing home was that the closest one to us that took a vent patient was severl hundred miles away. My Mom does not have long term health insurance. What she has is Medicare and GEHA, which is a government insurance. It pays for most of her medical needs. Dad is out of pocket around $300.00 per month for supplies. He also pays one sister who quit her job to stay with her on week-days $200.00 per week. I am sure there are other costs we just are too afraid to keep up with. Just what we know he pays is $14,000 a year. It is scary to think about what we may be faced with in the future. It is very difficult to plan for the end.
What scares me about nursing homes and Medicaid is that with all the Baby Boomer generation getting on up towards retirement years, many of them are not, or at best, ill prepared financially. It also worries me with the current economy and unstable futue of or government leadership what will happen when there are so many people to be cared for and not enough funds to do it. I wonder if the government will begin deciding who is deserving of services for that as well, if there will be some sort of selection process. Will the United States have such a heavy burden that it would be easier to euthanize or neglect to provide needed care. It is very sad the number of people that either have no one close to visit or for whatever reason won't visit.
Hey Sara,
That was a great blog. I'm glad you chose that topic. My paternal grandmother died last year and was always very independent and refused to go into a nursing home even though she could no longer care for herself. Well, her children caring for her was out of the question. My father, her son, was always much to busy and her daughter helped as much as possible. While this blows my mind, it is not the point to this comment so I will move on. Since my grandmother had no one to care for her and refused to go into a nursing home, she hired someone to sit with her 24 hours per day. My grandmother was very wealthy when she became ill, however, she managed to spend nearly all of the money she had saved from a life of very hard work, on someone to care for her in her last years. I found this to be devestating. My mother used to tell me that when she and my birth father were married and we lived in North Alabama with my paternal grandmother, she would go to 3 different grocery stores just to save a couple dollars. She bought her house and her car with cash. She was so afraid she would not have any money to leave her two children when she died, that she sacrificed her whole life and ended up having to spend nearly all of the money on her own health care. That's hard for me to understand, she worked hard and saved her whole life to leave for her children but was forced to spend it all because her children had no time for her. How ironic.
Nursing homes have always depressed me, not because of the number of people there but because it seems that they are/can be forgotten easily. I went with my boyfriend to visit his grandmother who is in a kind of rehabilitation nursing home. He left crying because the situation was so sad, but....he hasn't been back since and hasn't talked about going back. I'm sure that's not the situation for everyone, but it does seem to be true for teh majority. Maybe this is because it is too painful to visit. Anyway, I liked all the information you presented in your blog.
My grandmother had a stroke last year and my family was grappling with the idea of putting her in a nursing home, which no one wanted to do. My mother, my aunt, and my uncle have all decided to take turns during the week to take care of her and she has a nurse come see her at home once a week. I'm not sure what the cost must be like, but I'm sure its not cheap. Thankfully, my grandmother has some money squirreled away. I am still in my early twenties and it is hard for me to fathom or even address the issue of how I will be taken care of when I get old and infirm. I wonder, like marjorie, if our government will even have the resources to take care of the elderly by the time I'm in need of it, especially since people are living so much longer these days.
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