Indianapolis Elder Law attorneys have been keeping a close eye on long-term care costs and the news is not good.
Every year the MetLife Mature Market Institute provides detailed information about the current state of long-term care costs. Since we are now in 2012, they have the 2011 figures and they have made them available to the public via their annual survey.
Industry experts have predicted that long-term care costs will continually rise into the foreseeable future, and these 2011 numbers compiled by MetLife would confirm their suspicions.
In 2010, the national average cost for a single day in a private room in a nursing home in the United States was $229. In 2011 that number went up by 4.4% to $239. If you multiply that figure by the 365 days that are in a year, you find that the national average cost for a yearlong residence in a private room in a nursing home in the United States in 2011 was $87,235.
In Indiana the average daily cost for a private room in a nursing home was very close to the national average at $234.
A month in an assisted living community in the United States in 2011 came with a $3,477 average price tag, which is a 5.6% increase over the 2010 figure of $3,293.
It is important to note that most senior citizens will require long-term care eventually and the average length of stay is between two and four years.
Clearly, long-term care expenses are something to budget for when you are planning for the future, and the sooner you get started sticking to an intelligently conceived long-term financial plan the better.
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