Where to start › Veterans
If your person is a veteran
Wartime veterans and their surviving spouses have access to benefits that can help pay for care — and many families never find out. If there's military service in the picture, this is worth checking early.
Aid & Attendance
Aid & Attendance is an enhanced VA pension that pays tax-free money each month to eligible wartime veterans (or their surviving spouses) who need help with daily activities. It can go toward in-home care, assisted living, or a nursing home. There are service, income, and net-worth requirements, and the net-worth limit is set annually. The VA also runs home- and community-based care programs and grants to modify a home for safety.
Source: VA.gov. Our guide Veterans & military retirees goes deeper, including how TRICARE For Life and Medicare interact — a place where an expensive mistake is easy to make.
An important caution
Be wary of anyone who charges a fee to "get you approved" for VA benefits — accredited help is available for free. The right people to talk to are a Veterans Service Officer (VSO) — through your county veterans office or an accredited organization — and they don't charge for it.
Where the public record stops — and who to ask
Does your veteran qualify for Aid & Attendance or VA care programs? That answer depends on your state and your situation, and it belongs to the people who decide it — not to us. Here is who has it, and exactly what to ask so you arrive prepared instead of lost.
Who to ask: an accredited Veterans Service Officer (VSO) — free — through your county veterans office or a VSO organization.
What to ask them:
- Based on service history, does my parent (or surviving spouse) qualify for Aid & Attendance?
- What is this year's net-worth limit, and how is our situation counted?
- What VA home-care or home-modification programs are available locally?
- How do VA benefits interact with Medicare, TRICARE For Life, and Medicaid?
You now know more than most people who walk into that office. That is the whole point of this page.
Who helps you locally — free, and on your side. You do not have to figure this out alone. Your Area Agency on Aging gives free options counseling; reach any of them through the federal Eldercare Locator at 1-800-677-1116 or eldercare.acl.gov (Administration for Community Living). More on the four people who help — and what each one does — on Who helps me locally.