Plan for long-term care

COLUMBUS, Ohio — While farmers have little control over the long-term care they may need, they do have options as to how to plan for those costs, said Robert Moore, agricultural and resource law specialist with Ohio State University Extension’s Agricultural and Resource Law program.

Long-term care services include home-based care and long-term care facilities, such as independent living apartments and nursing homes.

In Indiana, the monthly median costs in 2021 were:

• Homemaker services — $4,767.

• Home health aide — $4,767.

• Community and assisted living adult day health care — $1,733.

• Assisted living facility — $4,283.

• Nursing home facility semi-private room — $7,270.

• Nursing home private room — $8,700.

A cost calculator can be found at https://tinyurl.com/5768r4x7.

While the average farmer can likely absorb the average costs of long-term care, few farms can withstand the outlier scenario where many years are spent in a nursing home.

Of those needing long-term care, 20% will require care for longer than five years. Someone in that 20% group could easily pay $500,000 or more in long-term care costs, Moore said.

Risk assessment is critically important when planning for long-term care, he said.

“A risk assessment must be done on a case-by-case basis to know which long-term care strategy is best to implement,” he said. “Risk assessment analyzes potential long-term care costs, income and savings to determine what is actual risk to farm assets.”

Questions To Ask

After determining the long-term care costs for your state, ask these questions:

1. Is long-term care insurance available to pay some or all costs?

2. What after-tax income is available to pay for long-term care costs?

3. What savings and investments are available to pay for long-term care costs?

4. What operating assets are available to pay for long-term care costs?

5. What is risk tolerance for land being used for long-term care?

Learn more at https://tinyurl.com/mrnwd3rs.