Sep 03 2024 8 mins
The Seattle Times addressed the cost of long-term care in this recent article, Seattle-area assisted living comes with a crushing price tag.
The cost of long-term care often comes as a shock to many.
What does care cost? This slide provides a snapshot of the annual costs of home care, assisted living, skilled nursing, and adult family homes. (Memory care costs are not reflected in this graph). This data comes from the Genworth Cost of Care Survey.
As Lisa reflects, she has been doing this work for 20 years, and it's really over the last couple of years, certainly during the pandemic, that costs began to skyrocket in the greater Seattle area.
Good to note that no matter where you are in the country, costs in a major metro area will be more than outside the city. In the Seattle-Bellevue-Kirkland area, you don't have to go very far outside the metro area for costs to go down considerably.
The need for long-term supports and services usually grows over time. Someone may need a little bit of help and over time, depending on health and condition, it may gradually transition to needing round the clock support. When people first start to need help, it's often an affordable expense to have a little bit of help at home. And there may come a time when moving to a more supportive living environment makes sense.
How Much Help Will You Need? At some point, 70% of us will need help at some point in time, but how long will you need help? Statistics show that someone over 65 will need some type of long-term care assistance for three years.
Women tend to live a little longer, and that number is 3.7 years. For men it is a little less at 2.2 years. And 20% of us will need care for longer than five years.
So the question people will often ask is, What should I be planning for? What number should I use when I'm planning for care? How many years should I be using in my financial planning? It never hurts to be more conservative in your planning. So, if you have the resources to plan for five years, it's certainly much safer.
Uncertain about the cost of long-term care? Not sure what you want and how to engage your family? We can help! Click here to schedule a get-acquainted call with a Certified Care Manager to head in the right direction.
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