Here's What the Cheapest LTC Option Looks Like Now

U.S. adult day centers had the capacity to serve about 300,000 people in 2016, according to a new long-term care (LTC) report published by an arm of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

That's up from about 150,000 in 2010, according to an earlier survey conducted by an affiliate of MetLife.

(Related: 5 Cheapest States for Adult Day Health Care)

Many of a financial professional's retirement planning clients who end up needing long-term care services will probably end up relying on informal care at night and using their savings, annuities, long-term care insurance, or life insurance LTC benefits options to pay for adult day care center services during the day.

The median cost of adult day care center services is only about $70 per day, compared with a cost of about $235 per day for a semi-private room in a nursing home, and about $160 for eight hours of homemaker and home health aide services per day, according to results of a survey conducted for Genworth Financial Inc.

Researchers at the CDC's National Center for Health Statistics have included some data on adult day services providers, along with data on nursing homes, assisted living facilities and other LTC services providers and users, in the new LTC report, which is based on a survey of LTC providers and users.

The researchers found that:

The supply of adult day services slots is still much smaller than the supply of nursing home beds. Nursing homes have about 1.7 million certified beds.
The average adult day services center has 66 slots. The average nursing home has 106 certified beds.
The Midwest, the region with the fewest adult day services slots, has 15 nursing home beds per adult day services slot. The West, which is the region with the most adult day services slots, has just 2.5 nursing home beds per adult day services slot.