What does Nursing Home Care
Cost in Pennsylvania?

In our experience, this is one of the first questions almost every family asks. We found average costs for Pennsylvania in the data from the MetLife 2012 Market Survey of Long-Term Care Costs.

The survey says that the average cost in 2012 of Nursing Home care in Pennsylvania was $290 per day for private care, and $273 per day for semi-private care. The rates increased significantly from 2010 levels, which were $258.00 per day for private care, and $248.00 per day for semi-private care.

The daily cost varies, depending on your locality. In Pittsburgh, for instance, the average cost of private care per day was $328.00. In Scranton, it was $255.00. The rest of the state has a lower daily cost, as an average, with $280.00 for a private care and $266 for semi-private.

The United States average cost for a semi-private room was $205.00.

For comparison, the average monthly cost for Assisted Living in Pennsylvania in 2012 was $3503.00. The cost of a home health aide in 2012 was $21.00 per hour.

This information comes from the National Clearinghouse for Long-Term Care Information which is a web site produced by The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services . They credit the 2010 MetLife Market Survey of Long-Term Care Costs as the source for the data they present.

They include this explanatory note about the MetLife survey:

MetLife provides a "State Average" for each type of long-term care service in each state-the average of all rates for all sampled services in the state. In the states where MetLife includes average rates for one or more cities or areas within a state, these averages are specific to those areas.