FIL is over 90, has Medicare and Tricare for life. I just got a letter from the VA asking for more info about his application for Veteran’s health benefits. No one in the family applied for anything, I am wondering if there is any reason to submit the requested info? Is there something beyond basic healthcare, for which he already has coverage, which might benefit him? He is currently in assisted living.
I can’t answer your question but this publication might be helpful: http://www.va.gov/opa/publications/benefits_book/2014_Federal_Benefits_for_Veterans_English.pdf
Are you sure this isn’t a scam?
The VA has been fabulous in support of my 86-year-old father (who also has other insurance from his post military career). He has multiple health issues: metastasized cancer, Parkinson’s Disease, dementia and diabetes are on the front burner.
For example: VA provides palliative care, put in a stairlift seat & bathtub lift in the house, provides deeply discounted senior day care… But most importantly, they gave him the designation of “catastrophically disabled” which means skilled nursing is covered if needed.
I think it’s worth looking into. You may find that things you are paying for may be covered. Or that there are things that would improve his quality of life that the VA could provide.
There is a key benefit for veterans that is not well known. If vet served in any official war (or spouse of war vet) he/she can qualify for about $1,800/month in nursing/assisted living care. Its complicated to file all the forms and it takes almost 9 months to get approved.
There are many Vet Advocacy companies that ally with nursing homes and assisted living places. These companies charge a fee to fill out all the forms and push it through the VA. They also make money selling annuities to the vets (which is required to transfer assets like an IRA into income)
To qualify, a vet can keep their home and car (even if in nursing home)
Cannot have more than about $30,000 to $50,000 in liquid assets (including IRA) and income has to be less than, or close to, costs. Vet has to need to prove aid required for daily living. This usually works best if vet is in assisted living paying for services above the basic rent.
My guess the letter is from a company that makes money ‘helping’ get the Aid and Assistance benefit
You can do it all yourself, you don’t need to pay the company. We got it for my father and I had no choice but to deplete his IRA and transfer to a fixed income annuity. This makes me very nervous if there is an emergency and we don’t have much cash available.
In your specific case, the assisted living facility may have applied for him and/or set him up with a Rep to help defray their monthly costs. Just make sure it’s not one of the slightly shady firms that ‘helps’ vets apply.
If nobody in the family applied, I’d be suspicious. I would want to talk to the assisted living facility to make sure it was them. If you can’t determine who is applying, I would not provide the information. I’d also want to make sure I’m really sending the information back to the VA.
There are some very good benefits that elderly veterans can take advantage of, based upon income.
I was going to go into my rant about so many people needlessly applying for veterans benefits, when they are eligible for Obamacare, Medicaid, and have health insurance provided from their employers, but I have no rant against elderly low income veterans applying for benefits. That’s who the benefits are meant for, I believe, not people who have plenty of other low/zero cost options,
Also wonder if the AL filed something?
@busdriver11 - Are you a veteran? If so, then you know that veterans’ benefits are for anyone who served this country in the military. My H is a Viet Nam-era vet who was ridiculed in public and spat on in airports. He is now retired after 30+ years in the Army and Army Reserve. He got his hearing aids free through the VA due to service related hearing loss, as well as eyeglasses and other medical care. My public-employee insurance, good as it is, would never have covered these things. We are also in the process of going off my insurance and onto Tricare, which is free for retired servicemembers and their dependents. I don’t feel bad about this at all. H and all veterans worked hard serving their country and are entitled to their benefits.
Just to be clear, the benefit I mentioned above is not ‘health care’. It is a relatively unknown Aid and Assistance benefit that is only for veterans who served in wars (I have no idea why that is the case). It helps defray costs for assistance with daily living tasks such as medication management, shower assist, mobility assistance, dementia lock down, etc.
So, most Assisted Living facilities know about this benefit and try to help residents get the benefits so that they can keep upgrading the ‘services’ to the resident. Most of us who have elderly in assisted living/nursing homes know that the extra monthly charges just keep going up. My Dad was in a fancy facility that wanted to add $50/month to their charges for the VA paperwork because they claimed they had to fill out a form every month for the VA Aid and Assistance benefit. Baloney… VA only reviews once a year and most of the paperwork has to come from resident/family. VA is most concerned about income to see if you continue to qualify… vs the facility costs. They automatically get tax returns from IRS every June. Facility only fills out one form a year which lists all of the services being provided to the Vet.
A lot of these ‘companies’ that help with the application and do financial advice (telling you that you have to deplete the IRA asset and move it to an annuity income) have relationships with the Assisted Living facilities. The Assisted Living facility will give the family a card and recommend the services.
“@busdriver11 - Are you a veteran? If so, then you know that veterans’ benefits are for anyone who served this country in the military. My H is a Viet Nam-era vet who was ridiculed in public and spat on in airports. He is now retired after 30+ years in the Army and Army Reserve. He got his hearing aids free through the VA due to service related hearing loss, as well as eyeglasses and other medical care. My public-employee insurance, good as it is, would never have covered these things. We are also in the process of going off my insurance and onto Tricare, which is free for retired servicemembers and their dependents. I don’t feel bad about this at all. H and all veterans worked hard serving their country and are entitled to their benefits”
Yes, @Bestfriendsgirl, I am a veteran. So is my husband, sister, father, FIL, BILs, and it keeps on going. I did not have the misfortune to be ridiculed or spat on during my service (and that horrifies me that people harassed soldiers like that), but it was pretty agonizing to have to hand over our baby to a babysitter for most of a year during Desert Storm deployments. There were many years that not a day went by that I didn’t wonder if that experience hadn’t made him suffer with the issues that he had to deal with. Thankfully, I don’t worry any more. So needless to say, I support veterans entirely. I think veterans services are great, and the ones your H has/is using are entirely appropriate. Especially after 30 years of service!
However, the veterans hospitals are packed nowadays. We hear about the waiting times and lack of service constantly. I believe much of this is due to the fact that many veterans are aware that they can use these services, and are massively overusing them, when they have other good options. Nobody wants to call attention to this, or limit care, and they really should, because veterans are overwhelming the system, often unnecessarily.
Let me give you an example. Flew with a guy recently who said he goes to his local veterans hospital for all his medical services. His insurance is awesome, good old fashioned union bargained, low copay, full service insurance like people used to have. When I asked him why he goes to the veterans hospital instead of using his insurance, he said because it’s convenient, and he likes the service. My opinion is that is crazy wrong, and I would never use the hospitals when I had good insurance. Your husband should be using the service, this guy—no way.
“My Dad was in a fancy facility that wanted to add $50/month to their charges for the VA paperwork because they claimed they had to fill out a form every month for the VA Aid and Assistance benefit. Baloney… VA only reviews once a year and most of the paperwork has to come from resident/family”
@Coralbrook, that sounds like theft, to add that charge. I wonder how they can legally get away with that?
My elder care attorney also talks about the VA benefit where you can get a significant amount of care paid for, even in your own home. It sounds like a really good option, if your income/assets are low enough.
@busdriver11 - I see where you’re coming from re the coworker. My situation’s kind of the opposite. I work for the most backward state in the Union. One thing they do offer is decent health insurance but as I said upthread, we’re switching to Tricare July 1. I feel better about doing that than continuing on PEIA and having this desperately cash-strapped state pay its share of our family plan when we have something else available. S1 has insurance through his job and S2 qualifies for Medicaid under our state Obamacare system. (I do feel a little hinky about his being on Medicaid, but that’s another thread.) As for my H’s civilian employer, they stopped covering all spouses January 1. If you’re married to someone who stays home with the kids or is self-employed they’re SOL.
I know a number of people who have Tricare, and it seems to be very area dependent. Some people are really happy with it, and others not happy at all. I hope you’re in a place where Tricare works like it should. So many of these programs are underfunded, seems like they ought to do a better job funding what they promised.
Our internist to whom we’ve gone for 20 is in the network, as well as our area’s major hospital system. My husband’s best friend is a family practitioner and he says they pay very promptly. So I think we’ll be OK.
That sounds like you’re going to be one of those people that Tricare works for, very fortunate!
We are also in the process of going off my insurance and onto Tricare, which is free for retired servicemembers and their dependents. I don’t feel bad about this at all. H and all veterans worked hard serving their country and are entitled to their benefits>>
It’s not free, but is cheap. And dependents are not covered after age 21 unless in school full-time. Once out of school or at age 23, they are not covered unless they enroll in Tricare Young Adult and pay the monthly fee and cost shares for that plan.
“We are also in the process of going off my insurance and onto Tricare, which is free for retired servicemembers and their dependents. I don’t feel bad about this at all. H and all veterans worked hard serving their country and are entitled to their benefits”
Don’t misunderstand, I’m not knocking retired people using Tricare, or any veterans benefits. My objection is with those who otherwise have good healthcare benefits using Veteran’s hospitals, unnecessarily. Completely different scenario.
@cap - S2 will age out of Tricare in August. He is currently out of school working a minimum-wage job, which qualifies him for Medicaid in this state. S1 has a job with insurance and we’re in the process of switching him over - he’s dragging his feet because he’ll have to pay for it now.