Are you a veteran or a widow of a veteran applying for benefits to pay for assisted living or to help you stay at home? If so, a smart strategy is to coordinate your planning for this public benefit with others you may need down the road. What does this mean? How do you do it? Listen up!
Earlier this week, Lisa Nelson, our Outreach Coordinator, met with a local Veterans Service Officer (VSO) to discuss how to get the word out to veterans and widows of veterans about benefits available to assist with the catastrophic costs of long-term care. It is true, many do not even know that they can qualify. They think a service-related injury or in-country service is required. Not so.
Of those who are entitled to a monthly pension based on their service, many unfortunately do not receive those benefits because they don’t know how to qualify. We learned that if they don’t immediately qualify, the VSO can provide very little information about how they can qualify. While it is the job of the VSO to assist veterans or widows of veterans in applying for benefits, it is improper for them to advise applicants about how to get their assets in line to qualify, no matter how much the VSO would like to help. So what are you to do?
This is where an Elder Law Attorney can help veterans and their widows with recommendations and strategies so that everything is in order when they apply with their VSO’s help. Further, a qualified Elder Law Attorney will make sure that the techniques they use to qualify for veterans’ benefits do not negatively impact their ability to qualify for other benefits such as those that pay for a nursing home stay at some future time.
In short, (1) if you are a war time veteran, there probably IS a way to qualify at some point for these benefits, (2) see us or another Elder Law Attorney to assist you in coordinating benefits to avoid any negative impact should you later go into a nursing home and also to (3) get your ducks in a row before you see your VSO to apply.
