Home care the VA can pay for directly

Three routes, and they are not interchangeable

Families are routinely told no by somebody describing a different program. Homemaker and Home Health Aide and respite care both sit inside VA health care and are arranged through the VA. Aid and Attendance is a pension benefit, paid to the household, which the household then spends on care from any provider it likes.

Knowing which one applies changes everything about what you do next, and it is the single most useful thing we can tell you on a first phone call.

What being credentialed actually means

This office is credentialed through VA Community Care and accepts authorized VA referrals. In practice that means where the VA has approved Homemaker and Home Health Aide hours, it pays us directly and the family pays nothing toward those hours.

We are not the VA, we cannot decide eligibility and we cannot speed up a decision. What we can do is tell you which route fits, what evidence the VA will ask for, and fill in our part of the paperwork and hand it to you completed.

Surviving spouses

Aid and Attendance is available to surviving spouses of wartime veterans as well as to veterans themselves, and it is the benefit families are least likely to have heard of. There are income and net-worth limits. It is worth asking about even if you think you will not qualify.