America’s long-term care services cost more in 2024 across the board thanks to rising occupancy rates and labor costs, according to recent research by Genworth and its CareScout unit.
Genworth based its findings on a survey conducted during the second half of the year among 15,000 nursing homes, assisted living communities, adult day health facilities and home care providers.
Participants’ responses indicated that labor costs contributed most to cost increases for home care services, while inflation was the chief culprit for increased costs for adult day care centers, assisted living communities and nursing homes.
Genworth’s survey found that the cost of a home health aide — “hands-on” personal assistance with activities such as bathing, dressing and eating — has increased by 3% to $34 an hour. That's an annual median cost of $77,792, based on 44 hours per week for 52 weeks.
Homemaker services — assistance with “hands-off” tasks such as cooking, cleaning and running errands — have gone up by 10% to $33 an hour, an annual median cost of $75,504.
The annual national median cost for adult day care was $100 a day, or $26,000 based on five days of care a week for 52 weeks, a 5% year-over-year increase.
Assisted living community costs rose by 10% to an annual national median cost of $5,900 a month, or $70,800 a year. The report noted that occupancy rates increased to 84% from 77% in 2023, likely pressuring supply and driving higher costs, the report said.
The national annual median cost of a semi-private room in a nursing home rose to $111,325 or $9,277 a month, up by 7%, while the cost of a private room in a nursing home increased by 9% to $127,750, or $10,646 a month.
ThinkAdvisor averaged Genworth's state-by-state rankings of the annual costs of in-home services, assisted living facilities and nursing home beds to create an overall ranking of the states. Genworth does not list adult day care costs in each state as this care type is less prevalent, a company spokesman said.
See the gallery for the 12 least expensive states for long-term care, according to our analysis of Genworth's Cost of Care Survey.
© Arc, All Rights Reserved. Request academic re-use from www.copyright.com. All other uses, submit a request to TMSalesOperations@arc-network.com. For more information visit Asset & Logo Licensing.