Long Term Care Insurance — Ontario
According to Christina Bisanz, the CEO of Ontario Long-Term Care Association, the Ontario Ministry of Health has no particular intention to increase the number of new beds in Ontario’s long term care facilities. This is despite the fact that there is already a long wait list of people — 25,000 in Ontario alone, according to Bisanz — who are waiting for placement into a long term care facility. These wait lists are only getting longer as Canada’s population ages and more people need acute long term care.
One long term care facility that is feeling the pressure is Forest Hill in Kanata, ON. Forest Hill is the kind of place you would want your aging parent to be in: built according to the Ministry’s new design standards with only one bed per room, most rooms overlook a golf course and lake, and it’s only minutes from hospital, fire, and police services. But with a waiting list of 223 people and growing, it’s not easy to get into Forest Hill.
What should caregivers do when they can’t get relatives into long term care facilities? The only other option is to try and get an Assisted Living Community to take you in as a resident (which can be tricky depending on the amount of care required) or home health care. Both of these options are not cheap.
When relatives are placed into Assisted Living communities , expect prices to range from $2,500 to $7,000 per month, per person. For home health care, current costs are in the $25-$30 per hour for a registered Personal Support Worker and$50-$60 per hour for a private nurse.
But even government facilities are not as affordable as you might think. An average government-run long term care facility will still cost residents $1614.21- $2161.71 per month (depending on the amount of your assets).
So is long term care insurance worth it in Ontario? In most cases, the answer is a resounding yes. Unless a caregiver is willing to take an aging loved one into their own home and provide care out of their own pocket, long term care insurance is definitely worth the cost.
Tags: aging trends, long term care, Long Term Care Insurance, long term care Toronto Ontario
People need to start investigating long term care insurance and get serious about it.
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