Douglas Nursing & Rehab Center

A nursing home is a facility for old adults that provides medical services as well as help with important daily tasks, such as eating and bathing. Patients in nursing homes are supervised by a team of physicians and nurses to ensure that care is always available. Nursing homes provide visitation options so that patients can maintain their relationships with their loved ones.

The terms “assisted living” and “nursing home” have different definitions, even though they are sometimes used interchangeably. An assisted living facility helps residents with their daily tasks, such as preparing meals, taking medications, and cleaning their spaces, but it does not provide ongoing medical care. The staff at an assisted living facility can take residents to their doctor’s appointments and provide help with common wellness issues, but they are not physicians and cannot provide the same level of care as a nursing home.

Nursing homes provide medical care around the clock, as well as help with everything from eating to bathing to dressing, depending on the patient’s needs. Nursing home patients are supervised by licensed physicians. Many patients move from assisted living to a nursing home after an injury or if a chronic condition gets too difficult to manage without daily care.

Nursing home expenses can be drastically different depending on what state you are in. Learn more information about the average costs for a month in a private room in a nursing home in each state.

• Medicare provides some coverage for nursing facilities, but you will still be left with out-of-pocket expenses. Medicare covers 100 days at a skilled nursing facility per benefit period. In some cases, Medicare can also cover 35 hours per week of home health services.
• Medicaid assistance levels differ between states. Veterans and their spouses may also be eligible for extended assistance benefits – veterans themselves may qualify for as much as $1,794 per month in assistance for nursing home costs.
• Many people choose to pay their nursing home fees with long-term care insurance. Long-term care insurance is designed to cover nursing homes, assisted living, and other ongoing healthcare needs. Some types of life insurance also provide a way to access your death benefit to pay for long-term medical coverage as needed.

If you’re a senior who is receiving Social Security income, you can use it to help pay for your nursing home expenses. However, it’s important to note that Social Security usually isn’t enough to cover the cost of living in a nursing home. You’ll need to use another form of income, whether that’s long-term care insurance or savings you may have, to pay for Social Security in its entirety. It’s also important to note that if you are using Medicaid to pay for your nursing home costs, you may need to forfeit some or all of your Social Security income, depending on how much you receive.