“Will VA Pension help pay for my mother’s assisted living facility bill?”

The VA Pension (Aid and Attendance) can be a great help in paying for an assisted living facility which in Alabama can range from $2500 a month to as much as $10,000 a month depending on the level of service.  Normally the price is around $3,000 a month.

The benefit will pay a qualified widow $1113 a month or a married veteran $2054 a month with a single veteran receiving almost $20,000 a year.

So let’s assume your mother is named Mary and she is a widow of a Korean war veteran living in an assisted living facility which costs $2750 a month.

Her income is only social security in the amount of $1,700.

We look at her IVAP — Income for VA Purposes to find out what she can be eligible for with this benefit.

IVAP is:

Gross income

<minus unreimbursed medical expenses>

So we start with $1700 and then we subtract out her medical expenses that insurance does not pay.

Here, it would be at least the $2750 of the ALF.

So her IVAP is actually negative (-$1050).

We want the IVAP to be zero or negative so we can get the full amount of the benefit — here it is $1113 a month.

So this would mean she would have $1700 a month in social security and $1113 a month in VA Pension.  This equals about $2813 a month so it would be enough to pay for her monthly bill at the ALF (assisted living facility).

Now this is a simplified example (we have to also look at assets and other items) but the point is to show that we normally can subtract the cost of the ALF from our monthly income and, unless we make a high monthly income, this should allow us to qualify for the full VA aid and attendance (Pension) benefit.

If your loved one lives in Alabama and you have questions about whether they may be qualified for this benefit, or you want to prepare now to be qualified in the future, give us a call at 205-879-2447 or contact us online.  We can set up a meeting or send you a free information package about this benefit.