Wednesday, October 4, 2000

Nursing home costs vary widely across the country

The average cost of a nursing home stay in the United States is $153 per day, according to a recent report from MetLife's Mature Market Institute, but that figure can fluctuate greatly depending on where in the country you live.

Manhattan is the costliest at $295 per day for a private room, while the Hibbing, Minn. area is at the other end of the spectrum at $90 per day. Atlanta is near the bottom at $110. Prices depend upon supply and demand, as well as a specific area's general cost of living.

For home health care, the national average is $16 per hour. The extremes range from $24 in Hartford, Conn. to $12 in San Antonio. Atlanta came in at $15, just below average.

With the average nursing home stay lasting two and a half years, costs are becoming increasingly important to families choosing how to care for a loved one.

"The projected average cost for one person is $55,000 per year or $139,500 for the average two and a half years, causing many families to have to spend down their assets," said Sandra Timmerman, Ed.D., director of the Mature Market Institute. "Home health care can be more expensive if intensive round-the-clock care is required."

Timmerman added that these figures could help consumers planning for long-term needs and such decisions as whether to purchase long-term care insurance. "The results can also be used to help people decide where one might want to retire," she said.

The study was conducted earlier this year in the 48 contiguous states, with more than 43 nursing homes and 219 home health care agencies contacted.

According to the National Center for Health Statistics of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, there are 17,000 nursing home facilities in the United States, with a total of 1.8 million beds and 1.6 million residents. The average nursing home as 107 beds.

Sixty-seven percent of all nursing homes in the U.S. are privately owned, while 26 percent are nonprofit and the rest government-owned. More than 75 percent of nursing homes are certified by both Medicare and Medicaid, and overall occupancy has fallen from 92 percent in 1987 to 88 percent by 1997.

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