Nursing Home Care: How To Pay for Nursing Home Care

On average, nursing home care cost more than $70,000 per year. But, there are a variety of ways to pay for nursing home care.

One of the things that concerns people most about nursing home care is how to pay for that care.  There are basically four ways to pay for nursing home care.

The average cost of nursing home care is $200 per day, not including additional fees for specialized services like care for patients with Alzheimer’s or dementia – that’s more than $70,000 per year! Although the cost of nursing home care varies depending on where you live, it can quickly eat up your savings depending on how you pay. Below are the four basic ways one can pay for nursing home care:

Paying for Nursing Home Care with Long Term Care Insurance
If you are fortunate enough to have this type of coverage, it may go a long way toward paying the cost of the nursing home.  Unfortunately, long term care insurance has only started to become popular in the last few years and most people facing a nursing home stay do not have this coverage.  In addition, many people either are not healthy enough to qualify for long term insurance or simply it is cost prohibitive.

Paying for Nursing Home Care with Your Own Funds
This is the method many people are required to use at first.  Quite simply, it means paying for the cost of a nursing home out of your own pocket.  Unfortunately, with nursing home bills averaging between $7,000 and $8,000 per month in our area, few people can afford a long term stay in a nursing home.

Paying for Nursing Home Care with Medicare
This is the national health insurance program primarily for people 65 years of age and older, certain younger disabled people, and people with kidney failure.  Medicare provides short term assistance with nursing home costs, but only if you meet the strict qualification rules.

Paying for Nursing Home Care with Medicaid
Medicaid is a federal and state funded and state administered medical benefit program which can pay for the cost of the nursing home if certain asset and income tests are met.

Since the first two methods of private pay (i.e. using your own funds) and long term care insurance are self-explanatory, my next posts will concentrate on Medicare and Medicaid.

This article is part of the eFuneral Resource Center and was written by Timothy J. Forrestal, an accomplished Cleveland, Ohio-based attorney with an impressive track record in the fields of elder law and estate planning.  He is a member of the National Academy of Elder Law Attorneys, the Estate Planning, Trust and Probate Section of the Ohio State Bar Association, the AARP Legal Services Network and the Better Business Bureau. For more information, please visit www.forrestallaw.com. The Forrestal Law Office Medicaid Planning Team offers help in the following areas: Division of Assets, Medicaid Planning, Living Trusts, Powers of Attorney, Estate Planning, Living Wills, Nursing Home Planning, Guardianships. Those thinking about end-of-life should visit eFuneral.com for help researching, planning, and arranging a wide variety of funeral-related services.