Last Updated: October 20, 2008
It's generally accepted that nursing homes and assisted living facilities are expensive. Less well known and perhaps accepted is how much nursing homes and assisted living facilities actually cost and how much those costs vary from state to state. According to the just-released 2008 MetLife Market Survey of Nursing Home & Assisted Living Costs:
- The average private room in a nursing home cost $212 in 2008 vs. $213 in 2007.
- The average semi-private room cost $191 per day, or $69,715 per year, in 2008 vs. $189 per day in 2007.
- The average assisted living facility costs $3,031 monthly or $36,372 per year in 2008, up from $2,969 in 2007.
According to the MetLife press release, the cost for a private nursing home room varies greatly from state to state with the highest daily rate being $577 in Alaska and the lowest daily rate being $127 in the non-metropolitan and non-suburban areas of Louisiana. For assisted living communities, Southern Maine had the highest average monthly base rate at $4,708 and North Dakota had the lowest average monthly base rate at $1,980.
Copies of the 2008 "MetLife Market Survey of Nursing Home & Assisted Living Costs" can be found and downloaded at http://www.maturemarketinstitute.com.
