How to Apply for the Veterans Aid and Attendance Pension Benefit
Long Term Care Benefits for Veterans
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The applicant must be a surviving spouse or a dependent child of an eligible veteran. VA form 21-534 is used to apply for death pension, death compensation, accrued benefits or dependency and indemnity compensation (DIC). The surviving spouse must be single. A surviving spouse of any age is eligible as long as the deceased veteran served at least 90 days during a period of war. They had to be married at least a year prior to death or have a child as a result of the marriage. There is no requirement for total disability for the surviving spouse nor for the deceased veteran to have been totally disabled or older than age 65.How does one prove that unreimbursed medical expenses will recur every month?
VA.has specific rules for proving future recurring medical expenses. Information below will outline the type of paperwork that must be submitted for each type of long term care service. Neither the claims form nor information from the regional office provides any guidance on the rules for proving future recurring medical expenses for home care or assisted living. One simply has to know how to do it.What if the veteran or spouse is currently receiving Medicaid?
Our interpretation of the rules leads us to believe that VA will not consider Medicaid payments as income. However, Medicaid will consider the non-allowance portion of the pension to be income. This could affect Medicaid eligibility in income test states. There is evidence that some income test states count the entire pension benefit including the allowance as income. According to federal Medicaid rules this should not happen.What happens when the veteran or spouse wants to receive pension & Medicaid together?
Federal law requires that a single veteran receiving Medicaid with no spouse or dependent children can receive no more than $93 a month from VA. Veterans in state veterans homes are exempt from this requirement. The veteran with a spouse can receive the benefit to help defray the costs of a nursing home. As a general rule, the pension benefit would probably not work if Medicaid were paying the bill. But the benefit does work well for non-Medicaid nursing home beds and while the recipient is going through the Medicaid spend down.Is a veteran entitled to compensation and pension at the same time?
The veteran cannot receive both benefits at the same time but must choose which one to receive. It does not have to be the larger income.What happens if the veteran dies during the pension claims process?
If the veteran dies during the claims process, there may be an accrued benefit payable to the surviving spouse or dependent child. If there are no surviving spouse or dependent children, there may be an accrued benefit to pay the unreimbursed costs of final medical expenses and funeral and burial.