National Report Provides Current Picture of Long-Term Care

​In 2012, about 58,500 paid, regulated long-term care providers served about 8 million people in the United States, according to a new report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS). The report presents results from the National Study of Long-Term Care Providers. About two-thirds of providers provided care in residential settings (38% were residential care communities and 27% were nursing homes), and about one-third provided care in home- and community-based settings (21% were home health agencies, 8% were adult day service centers, and 6% were hospices). On an average day in 2012, there were 1.4 million nursing home residents, 700,000 residents of residential care communities, and nearly 300,000 adult day service participants; in 2011, a total of 4.7 million clients received home health services and a total of 1.2 million patients received hospice services. The supply of nursing home and residential care beds and the capacity of adult day service centers varied by region, suggesting geographic differences in consumer access.