Study Confirms Few Plan Ahead for Senior Care

Senior care professionals can all tell you that most seniors do not plan ahead for senior care needs. Everyone just assumes, or hopes, they will never need senior care.  Finding the right senior care option usually is a last-minute task after a senior has been hospitalized for a stroke or a hip replacement or another age-related illness.  As hospital stays have become shorter on Medicare and Medicaid, seniors are finding they must receive rehabilitation care in a nursing home and at the last minute are scrambling to find the right senior care home in their area.

Nursing home care can be covered for 100 days by Medicare if all of the right care criteria needs are met and a medical doctor approves the need ahead of time.  However, all of the nursing home costs are not usually covered and this is when seniors also realize nursing homes usually only provide one Certified Nursing Assistant to every 12 to 15 residents.

Nursing home costs can range from $100 to $400 per day, depending on which area of the country you live but price does not always correlate with quality.  It is necessary to do the research to learn what the staffing ratio is for the nursing home where a senior will be going for rehabilitation or an ongoing stay for nursing care.

Genworth reported the results of a survey this past week called the “State of Planning” survey which further confirmed what we know - Americans are reluctant to plan ahead for long-term care needs.

The Genworth "State of Plannning" Survey found these reasons for why seniors do not plan for long-term care

• Retirement Worries: 38% of Americans who have not provided long-term care for a loved one in the past 12 months were most worried about having enough money to maintain current lifestyles, while 23% of those who have provided long-term care for a loved one cited money as a most worrisome concern.
• Women in a Critical Spot: 60% of females report not having a plan in place for future long-term care and more than men cite that not having found the right time to bring this up with a loved one as the most important reason preventing them from creating a senior care plan.
• Just Don't Want to Think About It: 82% of adults ages 45-54 without a long-term care plan say the reason is because they do not want to think about being dependent on others, not having the time to discuss options with a loved one and being unaware they should have a long-term care plan. 

The first step in starting to plan for long-term care is understanding the cost of senior care. Learn what Medicare does and does not cover and understand the financial qualifications for Medicaid (the low-income health insurance version of Medicare which does provide ongoing care in a nursing home but you must have nearly no assets in order to qualify). Review the costs of nursing homes in your area along with their ratings to know ahead of time which nursing home you would want should an emergency hospitalization occur.

Remember that senior care is basically 1 of 3 options: senior home care, assisted living community or nursing home. As Americans live longer lives, perhaps senior care planning will become more common as the options also will become more interesting. Request senior care options in your area now to start the senior care planning process.