Deplete Your Entire Retirement Income and Savings in One Fell Swoop? Long-Term-Care Can Make It Happen!
When illness or injury strikes, one of the first thoughts of the patient and family members is the cost. Fortunately, regular medical insurance will cover most of the expenses of normal hospital and physician care. For senior citizens, Medicare, Medicare Supplements, and even additional privately-purchased medical coverage will take care of the bulk of expenses. The scenario for long-term illnesses and/or injuries, however, is quite different. Average long term care costs are exhorbitant, and, if there is no long-term-care medical coverage, they can wipe out anyone's retirement savings.
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Because we are talking about average long term care costs, there is no need to go into the average daily cost of a hospital stay. It is when people get into situations requiring a few months or more of hospitalization, nursing home care, therapy, home health care assistance, etc. that the costs begin to mount into the realm of "horrible." When the long term care exceeds several months and waxes into years, the average long term care costs can be truly insurmountable.
Medicare and even privately-purchased supplemental health insurance policies have limits of coverage. Once those limits are reached, you are going to be hit with out-of-pocket expenses for nursing homes, therapy, in-home health care, assisted living, and, in some cases, hospitalization. If you have assets, you will pay. If you don't have assets, you lose all freedom to choose the levels and types of care you receive, even the nursing home into which you are placed. And your social security check is gone.
So what are the average long term care costs? Like anything else, they vary, dependent upon the quality of care the patient and family members choose and the level of care required by the illness or injury. My mother pays $7000 a month for round-the-clock in-home assistance, because she is unable to complete daily living tasks by herself. A nursing home of good quality would cost about the same. Assisted living can cost more, because it usually involves an apartment-type environment with more square footage to the patient.
Levels of care, including the amount of physician attendance, medications, therapy, and specialized transportation will add to average long term care costs. Generally, an individual can plan on a range of $5000 - $8000 a month for any type of round-the clock care, and $3000 - $5000 a month for less.
Obviously, individuals who believe that they may indeed incur long-term-care needs should plan ahead for this eventuality by first looking into average long term care costs . Waiting until the need is there is waiting too late. You can't provide for long term care costs after you have the illness or injury requiring it. Investigate the wide variety of long-term health care insurance plans available and determine if financing long term care now makes sense for you. (A one year premium is far less than one month of the average long term care costs).
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