Home Care Costs Increase in Ohio
By Barry Zimmer on September 22nd, 2016 in Long-Term Care
A Cincinnati estate planning lawyer helps with many different tasks designed to help you create a more secure future for yourself and your family. One of the most important things that an attorney can do for you is to help you protect your assets while making sure that you can get the necessary care you require. Seniors especially may need asset protection in case they need a nursing home or home care services, but anyone is at risk of illness or injury that could necessitate care. Having a plan in place in advance means your nest egg won’t be depleted and lost if this happens to you.
Asset protection and planning ahead in case you need care is becoming more important than ever, as the costs associated with getting care increase. Just recently, PR News Wire released information demonstrating that the costs of home care in Ohio are rising. As care becomes more expensive, you need to ensure you have a plan in place to pay in case you need it.
Zimmer Law Firm provides comprehensive assistance with protection of assets and with making a plan to pay for home care or nursing home costs. The sooner you act, the more of your assets you can protect- so give us a call today.
Rising Costs of Home Care in Ohio
PR Newswire reported on the 2016 cost of care survey prepared by Genworth. The 2016 survey of long-term care costs is the thirteenth annual survey. It showed the costs of all types of care services for the elderly are increasing throughout the United States.
The data specific to Ohio showed care costs which few people, if any, could actually afford to pay. For example:
- The monthly median cost of a home health aid in Ohio was $3,813 in 2016. This is up .91 percent compared with the prior year.
- The monthly median cost of homemaker services is $3,718 in Ohio, which is up 2.42 percent as compared with the year prior.
- The monthly cost of adult day services is $1,192 per month on average in 2016, and remains unchanged from the prior year.
- The monthly cost of a private room in a nursing home in 2016 was found to be $7,300 on average in Ohio. This is 2.13 percent higher than the cost of a private room in a nursing home in 2015.
- The monthly cost of a semi-private room in a nursing home was also up, but just .01 percent in 2016 compared with in 2015. The average monthly cost of a semi-private room in an Ohio nursing home is $6,388.
These costs are already too high for many people to pay. If there are increases of two percent or more for things like private nursing home rooms each year, more and more older Ohioans will experience a struggle paying for the services they need as they get older.
Planning Ahead to Pay for Care Costs
You cannot afford to find yourself in a situation where you must pay several thousand dollars per month out of your own pocket for nursing home or home care services. This is unsustainable and you will go through your entire life savings very quickly.
Unfortunately, Medicare and private insurers typically don’t cover nursing home costs for custodial care or routine care, so you cannot plan ahead to protect yourself from incurring high nursing home bills by just getting better health insurance. While you could buy long-term care coverage to pay for a nursing home, this is expensive and problems with reliability of same policies have made many wary of this option.
With few other choices, the best and only solution may be to try to qualify for Medicaid. Medicaid will pay for a nursing home, but you can only get covered if you have limited income and limited assets. The good news is, you can work with an experienced Cincinnati estate planning lawyer to try to find ways to shield your assets so you don’t have to spend down your wealth before qualifying for Medicaid coverage.
How a Cincinnati Estate Planning Lawyer Can Help
You work hard all of your life to build up savings and acquire property, and you should not lose the chance to be financially secure and leave a legacy for your loved ones, just because you get sick or hurt and need home care. Let Zimmer Law Firm help you to explore and implement asset protection strategies to keep your wealth safe while getting care costs covered. Give us a call at 513.721.1513 today to find out more about the ways in which our Cincinnati estate planning lawyers can help you.