Caregiver’s Toolbox Ep. 16 “Cost of Senior Care Services” on Apple Podcasts

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Ryan McEniff:

Hello everybody, and welcome to The Caregiver’s Toolbox podcast, tools to help you with everyday caregiving. My name is Ryan McEniff, the owner of Minute Women Home Care. And today we’re talking about the cost of senior care services.

Hey everybody. And welcome to The Caregiver’s Toolbox, tools for everyday caregiving, where we give you tips, information and education on senior care topics. This podcast is brought to you by Minute Women Home Care, and today we’re going to be talking about the costs of senior care services. And I’m joined with Janet, how are you Janet?

Janet:

I’m doing great, Ryan.

Ryan McEniff:

So one of the things that we think is really important, and one of the things that I wanted to make this podcast, or we wanted to make this podcast about was, we call balls and strikes here. And what we mean by that is whether it deals with private home care, which is what we are, that’s what Minute Women is, whether it deals with a competitor, whether it deals with an assisted living or a nursing home or whatever. I want to give you balls and strikes on what is the good, what is the bad, and what is the ugly, because each service has good things that are associated with it, and some drawbacks that are associated with it. So one of the things I wanted to go over was the way that you can go about finding out how much different services costs, because that can be pretty difficult, wouldn’t you say Janet?

Janet:

Yeah, I think so. And I think it’s an overwhelming thing because you’re caught between trying to be a rational financial decision, and then you’ve got all the emotional stuff that’s tied to it as well. And I know that this is certainly your forte. My world is the actual hands-on care and how to deal with those issues. But I know you pay close attention to what’s going on out there and what costs are so that we can support our clients and our… People are calling with questions. And you had mentioned a Genworth study that sorts out what these costs are. Can you explain that to people and what that’s all about?

Ryan McEniff:

Yeah, absolutely. So one of the things that I wrote up for our blog on Minute Women was the top tools that we had found online. And I’ll link that in the comments below. And one of those tools is the Genworth long-term care study. There’s also the MetLife study as well, but basically they’re one of the same. I think the Genworth is a little, is updated more regularly. I think it’s every year, every two years it’s updated, while I haven’t seen the MetLife updated as regularly. But what these do is they give you the cost of care when it is concerned, a private home care, adult day costs, assisted livings, and nursing homes. And what’s really great about the Genworth long-term care study is it doesn’t just give you like a general average of the region that you’re in. It locks into not only the state that you’re in, but the region within the state.

So even in a small state like Massachusetts, there are four different segments that they give you the costs on, because the cost of living are different. Obviously somebody living in downtown Boston is going to have to pay more for their care, because they’re paying the caregivers more because the cost of living is so expensive, versus if you’re out in Western Mass in the Boonies, we’ll say, in the woods, you’re probably not going to pay as much, because the cost of living out there just isn’t as expensive.

And that’s the same with every single state from Texas to California that you deal with, including Florida. Three or four big states, also New York that have wide ranges on where the cost of livings are determining where you are in the state. So what you’re able to do when you go to the Genworth and it’s completely free, there’s no login information, there’s none of that nonsense you have to give them. You pick the state that you are looking in, and then you pick the region within the state that you want to see, and it will bring you a dropdown of the four different categories. So I think it’s a really great opportunity to get an idea of what you’re getting yourself into before you start calling up different agencies in different facilities.

Janet:

I would think that would be really helpful, especially if you’re living out of state and you’re trying to deal with what are the costs of where your parent lives. Or if you’re looking at the costs of bringing your parent who lives in California to the Boston area with you, and you want to look around here.

Ryan McEniff:

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, when we’ve talked on about assisted livings in other podcasts, it’s that determination of if you want the community, or do you even want the convenience of being close to your family? Because some people are more… They have a strong social network that might not be close to where the adult child lives, but it could be vice versa as well that they don’t have that and they want to be close. And what I like about the Genworth, and what I don’t like, is I really do like how it gives you the information. What I don’t love about it is particularly going back to the balls and strikes, how it in my opinion, it makes home health care look less expensive than what it really is. And why I say that is when you look at everything, it gives you kind of a monthly idea or a weekly idea, you can separate it into like weekly, monthly, quarterly, annually costs, so you can make it however you want to look at those numbers.

But the problem that I find with the Genworth is that it tells you, well, the average person in America only uses 16 hours a week of home care. So that ends up costing what we’re looking at for Boston, or right around $4,800 a month for home care services, while a nursing home care in Massachusetts for a semi-private room is just under a $12,000 a month for home care, for a nursing home. So obviously looking at this, somebody is going to quickly look and say, “Oh my God, home health care is so much cheaper than a nursing home. And we’re going to go with home health care.” Well, in actuality, it might not be, because if you need 24 hours a day of home care from us, you’re paying a quarter of a million dollars a year for it because it costs that much money, you’re just consistently getting services.

While with a nursing home, they deal with what I called is pooled care, where they have one person caring for maybe three people at a time. So there’s a ratio for every one… Employees caring for X amount of people, so they’re able to keep the costs lower. So if you truly need 24 hour care, a nursing home, cost-wise, would probably be less expensive than private home care. So I want everybody to know and understand that you really want to break it down into how much it costs per month for an assisted living in a nursing home, how much it costs per day for adult healthcare, and then how much you cost per hour for home health care services. Because that way you get an actual… Once you know how much it costs per hour, then you say, well, if I need 12 hours a day, times seven days a week, times four weeks, I now know how much it’s really going to cost me versus what the average that Genworth gives you. Does that make sense?

Janet:

So the study doesn’t necessarily tell you how those hours are used.

Ryan McEniff:

Yeah. Or if it does, it can be in the fine print, like, well, this number is based off of 16 hours a week of care needed on average. Well, not everybody needs 16 hours a week of care, and as you and I know, 16 hours a week of care is a low amount of care in private home care. That is basically the bottom of what you need. And I don’t know if this is exactly 16 hours, but it usually gives you an average of what it costs versus saying, it’s just a flat rate of X amount of dollars per hour.

So just dig into it a little bit, this is still an outstanding resource, but it can be, I feel that trying to be honest with the balls and strikes, I feel that that can be a little bit misleading. The same with the adult healthcare center, because they usually charge by the day. So if you want to go there three days a week, and rightfully in Massachusetts, I believe it’s about $75 a day to go there, give or take. If you’re going there five days a week, obviously that’s a different number than if you’re going there two days a week. So you really need to know what the cost per day is versus what they consider their average monthly cost for adult home care, because people use it within different amounts, and that changes the cost of everything.

Janet:

Right. And aren’t there situations too, where it’s… I don’t know whether it’s actually a contract situation, but if you say you’re coming five days a week, and mother has a cold and stays home two days, I think you’re still paying for that amount of time.

Ryan McEniff:

I mean, absolutely. If you sign into a contract like that, then you’re going to be held accountable to what the contract says. So that’s the good and the bad of those types of things. Adult daycare, adult health care, adult day health home care. Excuse me. Adult daycare centers are usually lower costs, but they’re not providing a huge amount of hours, usually it’s like a 09:00 to 03:00 or an 08:00 to 02:00 kind of situation.

Janet:

It’s like school kids hours almost. Okay.

Ryan McEniff:

It’s almost like school kids hours. So unless you’re able to work part-time and pick your mom up and drop your mom off, you’re going to have to deal with, how do we get her there, and how do we get her home, and how do we keep mom safe until I get home from work. But that’s a whole another discussion.

It’s just understanding the differences in the cost. While with a nursing home or the assisted living, I think they’re a little bit more accurate, because once you’re in an assisted living, generally you’re paying a base cost. And if you get any additional services, that will increase that cost, but it gives you a really good idea of where you are in the ballpark.

Janet:

Yep. I agree.

Ryan McEniff:

So that’s kind of why I wanted to talk about the Genworth care study. I think it’s an outstanding study, I think it’s something that everybody should know about and we have it on our website, and we’ll link it below, but it’s something that, if especially if you live out of state and you live far away from your family member, then it’s something that’s imperative you look at so you have a general idea of what this is going to cost you. And then you can make a decision based off of that information.

Janet:

Yeah. I think that’s a great tool because everybody’s in the land of where do I begin and what’s fact and what’s fiction.

Ryan McEniff:

Yeah. A great place to begin, and I don’t mean to have this be shameless self promotion, but I will link it below. We did write up a very in-depth blog post on 50 plus places to start online that you can just casually browse at from your bedroom on the laptop. And it gives you 50 great websites where you can start looking for care that ranges anywhere from home health care to private home care, to… Excuse me, home. It ranges anywhere from private home care, to assisted living, to nursing homes, long-term care insurance. Anything that’s related to senior care we tried to put as much on there. And if somebody out there has a really great website that’s not on there, reach out to me on Twitter, I’ll take a look at it and I’ll add to it, because it’s a constantly updated resource that we want to make sure it’s the best and the information that we can find on the web for people to have a starting point for when they’re looking at a senior care services.

Janet:

Yeah, I think that’s a huge help because just like some people are led to believe by things you read or hear that nursing homes are all the same, assisted living is all the same, that they’re almost nice little boxes. And it’s really more like picking out college for your kid, and you got to go visit, and what are the courses? And you know what… Tuition is often the smallest part of the college experience. So you need to know where all the dollars are.

Ryan McEniff:

Absolutely. And so this is a good spot and take a look at that, and I’ll link to this, and I will also link to our blog post and that way people can have a good starting point before they even have to pick up the phone. Because we try to be very non salesy, and non pressure with Minute Women, but I know that other people have had experiences when you start calling up private home care companies, or assisted livings, or nursing homes, you get put into a database where you start getting calls on a monthly basis of where what’s going on, why aren’t you using our services? And people want to try to avoid that pressured sales tactic. So that’s why I think the Genworth and the other websites are a great starting point, because you are in complete control of what information you digest and what information you’re not interested in.

 So anyways-

Janet:

That’s excellent.

Ryan McEniff:

Yeah. So anyways, we’ll wrap this up. So if you have any questions or comments, or if you have any other websites that you think I should know about for our blog posts, contact me at @mwhomecare on Twitter, and this will be our podcast for understanding what the cost of care is for senior care services. And this is The Caregiver’s Toolbox, tools for everyday caregiving. Thank you very much Janet for joining me. And we have podcasts come out every Tuesday. Thank you and have a great day.

Thank you for listening to The Caregiver’s Toolbox podcast, which is brought to you by Minute Women Home Care Services, located in Lexington, Massachusetts. Call us at 1(844) BESTCARE if you have caregiving questions or needs. For comments regarding the podcast, find us on Twitter. Our handle is @mwhomecare. Thanks again, and we look forward to hearing from you.

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