Hotel Room Rates at Your Local Nursing Home!
I am taking a detour from one of our regular topics of nursing negligence in long-term care to comment on an interesting news item about nursing home costs.
It probably is no surprise that the cost of long-term care is on the rise, but the numbers might surprise you. It might be cheaper to check into a hotel and order room service than to check into a nursing home.
Hold on to your seat, or your wallet — the average cost of a private nursing home room was $92,376 per year or $7,698 per month. Meanwhile a semi-private room was $82,128 per year or $6844 per month. These rates increased by 2.27% and 1.24% respectively, according to Genworth’s 13th annual Cost of Care Study, released this week.
Ohioans, are you interested in what that means here in the land of Buckeyes? The study has a neat calculator which breaks down nursing home costs per state and region within our state. Northeastern Ohio costs are $250 per day for a private room in a nursing home or $230 per day for semi-private (annually that is $91,250 and $83,950).
Both interesting and alarming is the increase in assisted living costs, which saw a 4% increase to $47,700 annually. So how does that compare to the costs of keeping our seniors in their homes? This approach costs about half of what a nursing home charges: a home health aide costs $46,332 annually. And certainly keeping seniors in their homes is what most would prefer. The study found that costs in the Northeast were higher than the Southeast.
If only these rising rates came with improved care, maybe the higher price tags would yield a better value.