Buyer beware: Long-term care costs surging

Long-term care costs are surging again and the most expensive option — a private nursing home room — might soon top $100,000 per year.

Growing labor expenses and sicker patients helped push the median cost of care that includes adult day care and assisted living communities up an average of 4.5 percent this year, according to a survey released Tuesday by Genworth Financial.

The cost of home health aide services climbed the most, rising 6 percent, to $21.50 an hour. Private nursing home care now costs more than $97,000 annually.

Many Americans don’t plan for expenses like these or understand them until they face them, said Joe Caldwell of the National Council on Aging.

“People don’t like to think about it and talk about it ahead of time, so they kind of put off planning and saving for it financially because they don’t think it’s going to happen to them,” he said.

Long-term care costs can impose a crushing financial burden on individuals or families in part because private health insurance and Medicare, the federal program for people over age 65, offer only limited help. That can force people who don’t have private coverage to spend down their assets until they qualify for the government’s health insurance program for the poor, Medicaid.

Genworth Financial sells long-term care coverage and didn’t address that cost in its national study, which was based on information from 15,000 longterm care providers.