Long Term Care in Maryland

Long term care for frail elderly people includes a range of arrangements from informal care by relatives and friends through home health care, non-medical residential arrangements, residential facilities that provide some health care, to nursing homes and hospice care. The Health Care page of this section of the library has information about what the kinds of long term care are and how the may be paid for (insurance, Medicare, Medical Assistance, and more).

A report by the George Washington University Center for Health Policy Research in October 2000 illustrates the extent to which the American health care system depends on unpaid informal care, mostly by family members:

“One in three Americans can expect to spend some time over the course of a year caring for family, friends, and neighbors without payment. This adds up to 52 million caregivers a year, helping 37 million family members and 15 million friends. These informal supports are referred to as informal caregiving in the service system for elderly persons and as family supports or natural supports in the disability community. Caregiving responsibilities are assumed by adults of all ages. But most informal caregivers are in middle age and almost three-quarters of primary informal caregivers are women. Up to age 70, women are more likely to be caregivers and to care for more than one person. They also provide more hours of care on average and more care over longer periods. The gender gap narrows at older ages, however, as the share of informal care provided by men increases.”— From Understanding Medicaid Home and Community Services: A Primer (This document is on the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services' web site)

Despite a growth in private long-term care insurance for long-term care and the Medicare and Medicaid (called Medical Assistance in Maryland) programs, the long term care needs of an elderly person may be very expensive. Government and non-profit organizations do a great deal to provide all the needed services to people who cannot afford them through free and reduced cost programs. However, the cost of disability can be very high for families in financial, physical, and emotional terms.

This site offers legal information, not legal advice. We make every effort to ensure the accuracy of the information and to clearly explain your options. However we do not provide legal advice - the application of the law to your individual circumstances. For legal advice, you should consult an attorney. See our section on "Finding A Lawyer In Maryland." The Maryland State Law Library, a court-related agency of the Maryland Judiciary, sponsors this site. The website was developed (1999-2007) as part of an access to justice initiative by the Maryland Legal Assistance Network (MLAN) in collaboration with a number of legal services providers serving low and moderate income Marylanders.

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