RICHMOND, Va. – The cost of long-term care in Rhode Island not only far exceeds the national average, but it’s also rising much faster, by about 9 percent annually over the past five years in Providence and about 6 percent annually in the rest of the state, a new study shows.
The figures come from Genworth Financial Inc.’s 2009 Cost of Care Survey, conducted by CareScout, which covers more than 14,000 nursing homes, assisted-living facilities and home-health and adult-day health care providers in 331 regions across America.
Genworth, an international financial firm with $100 billion in assets, focuses much of its business on personal investments and retirement savings. It has been surveying long-term care costs since 2004 to help guide its clients’ financial planning.
Nationally, the latest survey found, the annual cost for a private nursing home room is $74,208, or $203 per day, up by an average of 4 percent per year since 2005, which is nearly twice the annual median inflation rate, 2.3 percent, over the same period, using the Core CPI of the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (which excludes food and fuel).
In Providence, the median annual cost for a private nursing home room is $108,770, and in the rest of Rhode Island, it’s $98,550.
Assisted living costs in Rhode Island, meanwhile, range from an annual median cost for a private room of $42,900 in Providence to $48,300 throughout the rest of the state. Over the past five years, costs have risen 2 percent annually in Providence.
Nationally, the annual cost for a private room in an assisted living facility is $33,903, and costs have increased 5 percent annually over the past five years.
Adult day health services in Rhode Island cost between $55 and $65 per day, with the highest rates in Providence. The daily rate nationally is $54.
The median hourly rate for a non-Medicare certified, state-licensed home health aide ranges from $23 to $25 across Rhode Island, the survey found, up by an average of 3 percent over the past five years. Nationally, the cost is $18 per hour, up 2 percent annually in recent years.
“Two-thirds of people over age 65 will need long term care in their lifetimes,” noted Buck Stinson, president of insurance products at Genworth Financial, in a news release. “Many Rhode Island residents who had planned to tap their hard-earned nest egg to cover future long-term care costs are finding this may no longer be a viable option given the economic downturn.”
The 2009 Cost of Care Survey was conducted by CareScout during January, February and March of this year. CareScout, which was acquired by Genworth Financial last June, has conducted the survey since 2004. For more information, or to get the full survey results, go to www.genworth.com.
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Under the Bush administration, the federal gov’t refused to set minimum staff-to-patient/resident ratios for nursing homes. The question this report raises is WHY RI care is so high. How does the quality of care compare to national data? What is the level of medical complexity possessed by RI nursing home residents? What is the average age versus national statistics? In essence, this report seems to be a “warning” that we are spending too much in RI, but does not provide adequate information to back up this claim.
About 90% of the people in nursing homes are women of a generation that spent their lives caring for their elderly parents, as well as their own children and aging spouses. Now that they need someone to take care of them, we want to pinch pennies? One of the fastest growing populations in our country is the elder elders — those over 85. Despite what Gov. Carcieri says, most folks who have moved into long term care cannot be safely cared for at home, without risking their health, safety, and lives. We shall see what happens with the Medicaid waiver over the next few years, but I predict we will see unnecessary deaths and suffering my our oldest citizens. If this isn’t criminal, it is certainly a moral sin — and this by a Governor who purports to be “pro-life.” I guess that only applies to the front-end.
This Genworth study measures the amount that providers charge their patients who pay out of pocket. In the nursing home setting, hardly anyone does so. The great majority of nursing home care in Rhode Island (as elsewhere) is paid for by the Medicaid program. Since Medicaid rates don’t even cover the cost of providing care, nursing homes have to make up the shortfall from other sources, including the rates they get from private pay patients.
Therefore the REALinformation the experts glean from this Genworth study (which comes out every year) is which states have the worst Medicaid reimbursement problems. If private pay rates have risen in a given state, it’s a good bet that Medicaid reimbursement was slashed in that same state. That’s the case in our state. Rhode Island Mediaid has cut its payments to nursing homes each of the past three years, most dramatically in the last year.