VA Pension Helps Increase Residency in Senior Living
Searching for Options
Is your census where it needs to be? Searching for ways to encourage potential residents to move in? The Department of Veterans Affairs offers an underutilized VA pension benefit that may help your potential and current residents pay for assisted living.
Increase Your Occupancy
Depending on the cost of care at your facility, these VA Aid and Attendance benefits can cover up to 50% of your resident’s monthly rate. But in order to help your residents take advantage of the VA’s assistance, you must first understand how the Veteran Aid and Attendance eligibility is determined. Even though the VA needs to know quite a bit of information to make an eligibility decision, knowing the correct questions to ask your resident can help you determine if they might be eligible for VA pension.
A Little Research Goes a Long Way
The threshold criteria for Veteran Aid & Attendance eligibility is wartime status. Regardless of whether you are dealing with a veteran or the surviving spouse of a veteran, you must know the veteran’s dates of service. Even though most veterans, or their families, will know if they served during wartime, you will still want to verify service dates. Unless the veteran served at least 90 days of active duty, one of which was during wartime, they will be ineligible for Aid & Attendance. You can quickly access current and accurate wartime service dates at the following Veterans Affairs website:
http://www.benefits.va.gov/PENSIONANDFIDUCIARY/pension/wartimeperiod.asp
Veteran Assisted Living
Armed with accurate service dates and the knowledge to determine wartime status, you can now intelligently advise your residents on whether they should obtain more information on Aid & Attendance benefits. Before you start promising your residents the VA benefit, make sure they’ve served at least 90 days and received an honorable, medical or general discharge. While most veterans will meet these service criteria, not all will.
If you know what constitutes wartime service and when the veteran served, you’ll be one step closer to increasing your census and helping a veteran obtain the VA benefits they need.
Help Is Just A Phone Call Away
I encourage you to contact Veterans Financial if you or any of your residents want further information. One of our trained specialists will promptly answer your call and assist with any questions during the process. Dial 1-800-835-1541 to find help just a phone call away.
Together we can help our veterans get the care they need and comfort they deserve.
