Home Health Care Compared to Nursing Home Care
About 70 percent of people aged 60 and above will require long term health care services at some point in their lives. Nearly 41 percent of long term care provided to individuals under the age of 65 who need help due to diseases, disabling chronic conditions, injury or severe mental illness. It is valuable to know what kind of health care service provider offers the required services.
The first difference between home health care and nursing home care starts with the availability of facilities. There are 15,622 nursing homes in the United States. There are approximately 33,000 US home health care agencies. This proves that home health care is easier to attain due to the larger amount of agencies and health care personnel.
A second difference is the costs or packages of which the services provided. Nursing homes offer room, board, nursing care, personal care, recreational activities, medication management and adult day services. Home health care service providers typically offer skilled nursing care, medical social services, physical, speech therapy, and home health aide. When it comes to Alzheimer's care services, more nursing homes offer this service, but the home health care providers that do offer this service do not charge extra for it. Medicare coverage in home health care is also more encompassing than provided by nursing homes. In a way, it can be said that home health care is specifically tailored to suit individual needs.
Consider This:
Eighty-seven percent of nursing homes provide Alzheimer's care services. With that said, twenty percent of nursing homes charge an extra fee for residents with Alzheimer's. In comparison, seventy-nine percent of in-home health care agencies provide the same services but only one percent of them charge extra.
A recent study by the AARP, shows that 86 percent of people chose in-home health care over moving to a nursing home solely because of the costs. You could be spending up to #036;76,000 per year for your loved one to reside in a nursing home facility. The average cost of home health care is only about #036;28,000 per year.
On average, individuals with Alzheimer's disease spend about#036;3,000 per year on medications. Sometimes, these individuals are forced to pay for these medications at retail price. If this applies to you or a loved one, please print one of our FREE prescription discounts cards. You can print it right from the top of this screen. Just take this card into the pharmacy with your prescription to receive discounts at point of sale.
