Senior Care Management Services

Senior Care Management Services

Welcome to Senior Care Management Services

Caregiving Cost to U.S. Businesses Exceeds $33 Billion Per Year

Since 1997, several studies have been conducted that together reveal the number of caregivers in the U.S., as well as the cost to businesses with caregiving employees.

In 2004, the National Alliance for Caregiving (NAC) and American Association of Retired Persons (AARP) released Caregiving in the United States. This study found that over 44 million Americans provide care for an adult family member or friend age 18 or older. Other key findings included:

  • The majority of family caregivers (79%) are providing care to someone over the age of 50.
  • Nearly 60% of those caring for an adult over the age of 50 are working; the majority of those work full-time.
  • Nearly 40% of caregivers are men.
  • The average age of the caregiver for a person over the age of 50 is 47.
  • Most caregivers provide unpaid care to a parent or grandparent.
  • Approximately 15% of the caregivers were providing care to someone who lived at a distance of more than an hour away.

Later, in 2006, the MetLife Mature Market Institute (MMI) and the National Alliance for Caregiving (NAC) together issued The MetLife Caregiving Cost Study: Productivity Losses to U.S. Business (2006), which estimated the productivity losses to U.S. business of employees who must make workplace accommodations as a result of caregiving responsibilities. The study looked at the cost to employers of absenteeism, workplace disruptions, crisis in care, supervisory time, unpaid leave and reducing hours from full-time to part-time.

Key Findings of the 2006 study were:

  • The total estimated cost to employers for full-time employees with intense caregiving responsibilities is $17.1 billion.
  • The average cost per employee for those with intense caregiving responsibilities is $2,441.
  • The total estimated cost to employers for all full-time, employed caregivers is $33.6 billion.
  • The average cost per employee for all full-time, employed caregivers is $2,110.

2010: Healthcare Costs Related to Caregiving Employees in Excess of $13 Billion per Year

After the 2006 study, questions remained: What, if any, health cost and health condition differences exist between employed caregivers of elderly relatives and non-caregivers? What is the cost differential for employers in terms of health care for working caregivers and other employees?

Working Caregivers and Employer Health Care Costs (February 2010) was a collaborative project of the MMI, NAC, and the University of Pittsburgh, and focused on how caregiving, employer health costs, and employer-sponsored wellness benefits intersect. It reports on a case-study analysis of anonymous aggregate responses from 17,097 U.S. employees of a major multi-national manufacturing corporation who completed health risk assessment (HRA) questionnaires. Nearly 12% of these employees reported caregiving for an older person, and generally those caregiving employees reported poorer health and more chronic disease than non-caregivers.

Key Findings of the 2010 Study

  • The estimated average additional health cost to employers is 8% more for those with eldercare responsibilities, which conservatively is estimated as costing U.S. employers $13.4 billion per year.
  • Employees providing eldercare were more likely to report fair or poor health in general. Employees providing eldercare were significantly more likely to report depression, diabetes, hypertension, or pulmonary disease regardless of age, gender, and work type.
  • Eldercare demands were associated with greater health risk behaviors such as smoking and use of alcohol.
  • Employed caregivers find it more difficult than non-caregivers to take care of their own health or participate in preventive health screenings.
  • Employees with eldercare responsibilities were more likely to report missed days of work.
  • Excess employee medical care costs associated with eldercare were highest among younger employees, males, and blue-collar workers.
  • Younger caregivers (ages 18 to 39) demonstrated significantly higher rates of cholesterol, hypertension, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), depression, kidney disease, and heart disease in comparison to non-caregivers of the same age.
  • Often mischaracterized as an “older worker” issue, demographic trends indicate that a greater number of employees of all ages will assume the role of family caregiver with an increasingly older population.

MetLife developed an ElderCare Calculator (www.eldercarecalculator.org) that can estimate the employer cost of employed caregivers. In an organization of 10,000 employees, the employer’s cost is estimated to be in excess of $1.1 million.

Not addressing the eldercare needs of your company could be costing you more than $1 million dollars in lost productivity.