Long-Term Care Cost Calculator
Compare costs, types of service in your area
What does AARP’s Long-Term Care Cost Calculator do?
The calculator helps families compute the costs of long-term care. It estimates the cost in your area for nursing homes. It provides prices for assisted living facilities. Finally, it measures the costs of services that allow older adults to age in their own homes, via adult day care and with home health aides and homemaker services.
How does the calculator estimate the cost of long-term care in my area?
The calculator estimates median costs in your area based on a nationwide cost-of-care survey. The survey, produced by Genworth Financial, includes research from 435 cities in 50 states.
What is long-term care?
Long-term care takes many forms in today’s society. Most often, it is provided at home by family, friends or paid caregivers. Some people need more intense, 24-hour care of the kind offered in nursing homes and other residential settings, such as assisted living homes.
COVID-19 continues to affect residential and nonresidential long-term care. AARP offers the latest news and guidance about nursing homes and care at home.
What is a long-term care facility?
These facilities vary widely in the care offered, costs and the people they serve:
Nursing homes
Nursing homes give residents supervision 24 hours a day. They typically provide nursing care, three daily meals, help with personal care and rehabilitation services, which usually include physical, occupational and speech therapy.
Some residents need only short-term rehabilitation after a hospital stay or injury. But most nursing home residents have long-term physical or mental health conditions that require that they remain for long periods, or permanently, in private or semiprivate rooms.
One easy way to assess nursing home quality is through Nursing Home Compare, maintained by the federal government. Families should also visit homes and review federal and state files.
Assisted living
Assisted living residences are largely nonmedical facilities for older adults who need some help with daily life and can no longer live on their own. They remain healthy and active enough that they don’t need to be in nursing homes. But they often need help with medication and housekeeping.
Residents have their own single rooms or apartments. They often eat in dining rooms and can attend on-site exercise classes and movies.
Residential care homes
Residential care homes are a smaller form of assisted living, normally with room for 20 or fewer older adults, often in residential neighborhoods, and are similar in cost.
Memory care
Memory care is typically provided in units attached to assisted living facilities and nursing homes. Such units care for older adults diagnosed with dementia and Alzheimer’s disease who can no longer live on their own. They usually have locked doors to prevent residents from wandering.
Continuing care retirement communities
Continuing care retirement communities combine different levels of care on one campus.
The advantage is that you can stay in one place as you age. The disadvantage is the cost, with entry fees averaging more than $400,000, according to the National Investment Center for Seniors Housing & Care.
Veterans care
Veterans receive a range of benefits for long-term care. They may stay at regular nursing homes on contract with the Department of Veterans Affairs or at homes operated by the VA. They may also be able to use certain funds to pay for assisted living and home care.
What is nonresidential long-term care?
Long-term care includes ways to stay in your own home. According to AARP’s recent “Home and Community Preferences” survey, 77 percent of adults 50 and older prefer to age in place. Services include:
Many adults will start paying with their own savings, a retirement fund or the money from selling a home. Most will pay with Medicaid, often by spending down their assets to reach its guidelines.
Some adults 62 or older may be able to apply for reverse mortgages, in which they convert part of the home’s value into cash. Beware, some plans are offered by scammers.
Long-term care is expensive. Genworth puts national median monthly 2021 costs at $9,034 for a private nursing home room and $4,500 for a one-bedroom unit in assisted living. A home health aide costs $5,148 per month.
What is long-term care insurance?
Long-term care insurance helps pay for long-term care services of several types, from homemaker services to nursing homes. It can step in where government programs leave off.
For instance, Medicare provides very limited coverage for long-term care. It can help pay for up to 100 days in a skilled nursing facility if you need physical therapy, occupational therapy or other skilled care after a qualifying hospital stay (you have to pay $194.50 of the daily cost for days 21 to 100 in 2022). And Medicare doesn’t provide coverage if you primarily need custodial care in a nursing home, such as help with bathing, dressing, eating and other activities of daily living.
Medicaid pays for the bulk of long-term care services but is pegged to an older adult’s income and assets, often requiring “spending down” to qualify.
What does long-term care insurance cover?
Most policies allow you to use your benefits in nursing homes, assisted living, memory care, hospice care or adult day care centers and for care at home.
Most people buy it in their mid-50s to their mid-60s and are typically screened by companies to ensure medical eligibility. According to the data from the American Association for Long-Term Care Insurance, average annual premiums for policies with a 3 percent growth rate in 2021 could range from $2,220 at age 55 for a single man to $5,265 at age 65 for a single woman if both had some health issues. Couples pay less per person.
Some employers offer long-term care insurance, and such insurance bought at group rates can require answering some health-related questions, but it may be easier to qualify through work than if you buy it on your own.
