Long Term Care Revenues to Reach $353 Billion in 2015

The U.S. long term care market is expected to see steady growth in the coming years according to research from Kalorama Information.

In 2005, the market’s value stood at $186 billion and has grown to $258 billion in 2010. For the next five years, growth will continue at annual rates of over 6%, resulting in a market with revenues of $353.5 billion in 2015 according to the report.

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The nursing home segment will continue to comprise the largest portion of total long term care revenues, at $136.0 billion in 2015, but its share will decline to 38.5%.

“The segment will benefit from an aging U.S. population with large numbers of persons entering the 75 and over age group, although it will continue to experience pricing pressure from Medicaid patients,” said the report.

This poses a real problem for American, since estimates show that, while two out of five Americans will need long term care at some point in their lives, many cannot afford it.

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Residential nursing care is the most expensive, at more than $65,000 per year for a semi-private room in 2009, but assisted living can also be pricey, with annual costs exceeding $50,000 in many facilities and costs of $70,000 per year in better residences.

Because of the size of the nursing home market, the amount of competition is significant, yet even the largest players control a small slice of the overall marketplace.  Data from Kalorama for 2009 shows that HRC Manor Care led the market with nursing facility revenues of more than $3 billion and 2.9% share. Sun Healthcare followed with nursing home revenues of almost $1.7 billion and 1.6% share. Golden Living took a close third place with nursing home revenues of $1.6 billion in 2009 and 1.6% market share.

Other market leaders include Genesis Healthcare, Extendicare, Sunrise Senior Living and a variety of smaller players including both single location nursing homes and operators of multiple locations.

Home care will continue its strong expansion, accounting for revenues of $112.6 billion in 2015 and 31.8% of all industry revenues, as both private managed care and government health care providers increasingly seek to reduce the costs of institutionalized care by encouraging plan participants to utilize home health care.