VA benefits and pensions overview, Part 4
Elder law and special needs attorney Jim Koewler talks with Suzanne Newman about veterans benefits, claims, and appeals under the current rules. If your loved ones have spent any time in the military, they may qualify for benefits you might not be aware with. This segment continues the conversation from part 3 on who is eligible for veterans benefits and covers:
Eligibility Update for VA Pension (a.k.a. Aid and Attendance)
- Aged 65 or older or 100% disabled
- Health care expenses use up most or all household incomePeriodic, predictable health care expenses
- ClassificationsAid & Attendance – Need help with some Activities of Daily Living, or need a Protective EnvironmentHousebound – Can’t easily get out on your ownPension – Expected medical expenses use up most or all income
Monthly benefits for VA Pension (a.k.a. Aid and Attendance), as of 12/1/2021
- Aid & Attendance
- Housebound
- Pension
Listen or watch on YouTube if you want to follow along with the presentation. Contact Jim Koewler at The Koewler Law Firm in Richfield, OH by calling 330-659-3579 or emailing jkoewler-afe@protectingseniors.com. His website is https://www.protectingseniors.com.
View Episode Transcript
*The following is the output of transcribing from an audio recording. Although the transcription is largely accurate, in some cases it is incomplete or inaccurate due to inaudible passages or transcription errors.
The following podcast is by Mr Jim Koewler, elder law and special needs attorney, helping and protecting those who need long term care. And Welcome back everyone to the answers for elders podcasts radio network. And we are here again with a program talking about va benefits. Will Your loved one qualify? There are a lot of different types of programs out there and we are here talking to Mr Jim Taylor, and please catch our first three segments. It’s the segment number for are does that correct, Jim? I’m trying to make sure we’re at the right thing. And we’re talking about pension. We’re talking about eight and attendance benefits, quote unquote. It’s important if you have a loved one, please start from the beginning because there’s a lot of foundational tools that have been put in place for you and your family. But we are here now in segment for talking about who is eligible. So it’s the floors yours. There sir. Thank you. And for those who want to know how far to go back, we were everything. You should listen to all the podcast but if you’re specifically looking for discussion of the a pension program what most people call aid in attendance, as Susanne suggested a second ago. Then we talked about the eligibility starting its segment three and we are now in segment for and I hope to finish during the segment, Cross your fingers. So again with the a pension, an AKA aid in attendance. The next eligible creite eligibility criteria is age or disabled. And, as I mentioned in segment to with the overview of the different programs. Yeah, sixty five is considered age. That goes back to the soft security era where full tip, full retirement age of sixty five. It hasn’t been changed. So those of your over height, hundred sixty five. Sorry, federgrament called you aged. Don’t take it as an insult. Or One hundred percent disabled. Okay, you have to be a hundred percent. If you can work, you don’t need pension because your your health issues are not bad enough. Okay. So it has to be a hundred percent disability. Most people get in through the aged door. And then there’s the health test, and we’ll talk about that or that the the health the care needs test, as another way to describe it. Okay. So, and now remember pension is a cash program it does not provide care. Provides money to be used to pay for Careva does not line up the care itself. So the they look at your healthcare expenses for purposes of the pension program the health care expenses need to be periodic and predictable. So this is something that you face all the time and it’s pretty much the same every month, and so with a little bit of experience, either yours or somebody else’s, we can predict what the cost are going to be for you next month, the following month and month after that, etc. So I heart operation is not a periodic, predictable expense. It may be predictable because we, you know, the doctors of the world have done enough heart operations that they know pretty much what they cost. Take a look at the different comparisons you may have. You know, look at you know hospital, abor’s hospital be whole different question. But you’re not periodically going to have heart surgery. This isn’t something you do every month, at least I hope not. Okay, so it is has to be periodic predictable. So this is basically maintenance health expenses. Okay, drugs would fit, except if you get the pension program be a will pay for your drugs. So then you’d be out of the program because you you didn’t need help paying for them anymore. And then you lose the program, you lose the VA coverage, so now you’re back in. It took me a a little bit to figure out that the audious stop measuring drugs for this because they just got everything screwed up, because if they covered them, okay, completely illogical, but those things happen. The other thing that makes a lot of sense here that probably won’t be covered is kid in dialysis. That’s periodic, three four times a week or every day, if you’re one of those places it does it every day. Pretty expensive. We know what it costs because we’ve seen it plenty of times. But it’s almost always covered by health insurance or Medicaid. So if it’s covered by somebody else, be as not kind of cover. It understandable. They’re not going to provide you two pockets to dip into for the same, same costs. So while Kiddy Day olysis would seem to fit, the entrance coverage or Medicaid coverage takes it back out. So really the only thing that fits is long term care, where you need help an activity living or you need help at home or something like that. So any now you don’t have to be so bad as to need help. That Tis Day living, but that does trigger the eight attendance level. Okay, but long term cares with the only thing that fits now the classifications, as I mentioned before, in segment to pension is your expected medically expenses use up most all of your income. House bound, you have deeds for pension healthcare expenses, using it most all of your income, plus you can’t easily get out of your own and a detendance is pension. You Health your expenses close to your income or higher, and you need help with separatetivity living, or you need to protect the environment. Protective Environment is dementia. Okay, cognitive issues, sir, though they may not help the ADL’s, but they do need somebody to make sure they don’t start the stove and leave it on all day. Okay. You do not get both a housebound and a intendance. You get pensioned by itself. You get pension plus house bound. You could pension plus a attendance. You don’t get all three, clean and simple. Okay, House bound and eight intenance or additional money on top of pension. If you don’t qualify for pension, I don’t care how much you seem to qualiferate intendance, but you don’t qualify for a pension, you get nothing. Ditto with Houseboun so, for those who can see it, this slide shows the different rates. That meant that va will pay the maximum rates be a will pay for this different combination. I have four of them highlighted because these are the ones that people for which people will apply. Correct housebound is not highlighted. Nobody applies for housebound. They will apply for an attendance. Va May say you only get house bound. Take it and appeal, but don’t turn it down. Take the money. Okay, right, but almost everyone applies for an attendance because it really, really only think about this when they get to that point that they need help with care, need to help with act his day the living, or they have a cognitive issues or their loved oness cognitive issues. Except, and I discuss this a little bit before, when it’s not the veteran but the spouse that is the that that has the care needs at with a spouse who has the care needs but not the veteran. Eight attendants and house bound or not available because those programs are measured by this, by the Veterans Health Needs, if the veteran is alive. Right. So when the veteran doesn’t have big health needs but the spouse does, they are limited to applying for simple pension at the married level. Okay, at the married level, but it is they’re limited to apply for simple pension. I’m going to take a few seconds here and burn through this for those who are on the radio and try to explain the table to them. If you don’t mean to say so now. So the multi benefits that are available, and this is from December of two thousand and twenty one forward, va changes it’s it’s does his cost of living. A judgments effective December one the last several years and I assume they will continue that way. Okay. So for simple pension, married couple can get a maximum one thousand six hundred ten dollars. A single veteran can get one thou turn twenty nine and forty one cents, and this is on a monthly basis and the surviving spouse is, I have it, widow. Just to make room on my slide, is eight and twenty four and sixty six cents. Got It or house bound. The married couple can get one thousand eight hundred and eighty three per month. Eight one thousand eight or and eighty three dollars. The single veteran can get one thousand pound of two and forty one cents. The surviving spouse heed one thousand seven dollars and eighty three cents. At the aid to tendance level, the married couple can get two thousand four and thirty one and twenty five cents. The single veteran can get two thousand feet dollars and eighty three cents, and the widow can get one thousand three and eighteen dollars and zero cents. Maximum. There are additional levels for this. If there’s a dependent child, it goes up another level. If both there are two veterans marity to each other, it goes up another level. There’s like thirty some combinations here. These are the big three. Married couple, single veteran, surviving spouse. Okay, find you if surviving spouse us has gotten remarried or surviving spouse is divorced. Surviving spouse probably cut off from benefits. Okay, right, I see. Probably because there are exceptions, as with almost every role. There are exceptions. I don’t want to go through them here because they can get quite complicated. If you are the surviving spouse or your loved in as a surviving spouse and there has been either a remarriage or a they were divorced, okay, right. Seek out someone who does is seek out someone credited to try to see if an exception applies. Okay. The categorization method for simple pension, house bound etc. Is, as I mentioned, if the veteran is living, it’s the veterans health that is measured. If the ill spouse is not the veteran, they just pension as all they’re going to get. Okay, and, as I mentioned just a second ago, more money possible. For people who aren’t watching, this is a new slide, so I’m out of have it repeating myself. Sorry, there is more money possible. If two veterans are married, there’s more money possible. There’s a dependent child. I know it’s so well, I do it without the slide and I apologize for repeating myself. The medical expenses have to be predictable, routine expenses expected in the coming year. They’re not looking back. NOPE, this is not reimbursement except from the time either can be risk reimbursement from the dat of application to the time it’s approved, and if there was eligar ability up to a year before that can be, after approval, reimbursed. Okay, expenses during that time can be reimbursed, but this isn’t. You’re not applying for last year. You can use last night of senses to predict neck the coming years expenses, but you aren’t getting money back on what you did before. At least that’s not the way to the program it might be available, but that’s not the way in the program and it ain’t going back more than a year. Okay, okay, thirteen months, you ain’t getting it. Fourteen months, you’re not getting it. Okay. So they have to be determined to necessary making air quotes by the doctor. There is a doctor’s form for this. That is extremely important. Death the controlling document. There’s one particular box on that form. This is Va. Okay, everything’s a form. There’s one particular box and it used to be twenty five, I think, but they’ve rearranged it, not more with the number of that box. It may still be twenty five. That is absolute essential. Whatever the doctor says there, that controls. Of the doctor said you need beer in cigarettes, then potentially beer in cigarettes count. I’m looking for that doctor, but whatever the doctors in that magic box. That controls. Okay. And depending what the doctor says in that magic box, potentially room and board and assisted living or skilled nursing can be counted. Potentially it can be counted for independent living as well. In if that is worded extremely, extremely carefully. Most of why we always say go to a professional. Yeah, yeah, I have. I have sent this form to doctors and say if the following is true, please say this or something close to it, in the magic box. Whatever the number is. Got It. Got It. That is extremely, extremely important. Fabulous. And so we’re going to go onto section five. Everyone in our next segment, and Jim will be right back right after this. State of Ohio residence, you have a friend to help you navigate long term care while protecting your assets. You can reach Jim at wwwting Seniorscom or just email him at j Koewler afe. That’s j Taylor AFE at protecting Seniorscom.
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Originally published March 06, 2022