Nick’s father had served in the Navy during the Korean War and while he didn’t talk much about his service, and Nick knew little about what he actually did during this U.S. war, when his father became ill and couldn’t manage his own care at home, someone mentioned that he could be eligible for veteran’s home care.
Of course, Nick didn’t know what his friend was talking about because he had never heard of the VA Aid and Attendance Benefit that was available to a number of veterans who had served during a time of war. He learned that in order to qualify, the military veteran would have had to serve in one of the major branches of the Armed Forces for at least ninety days, be honorably discharged, and also one of those days of service would have had to have been during a time of war.
He didn’t think that his father had actually served in a combat situation, being that he was in the Navy and would likely have only offered support to troops on the ground, but he was interested. His father needed some level of support at home in order to continue being able to live in his own home.
Nick researched it and dug up his father’s old service records. He had to help his father fill out the appropriate forms and it took a long time because there was quite a bit of information that Nick needed to dig up from his father’s archives, but when he had finally managed to do so, they sent in the application for processing and waited to hear back.
While he waited, Nick sought out an answer to another aspect of the veteran’s home care, or the benefit that his father might be eligible for. The question that Nick was most concerned about had to do with the duration of the home care. He wanted to know whether it would cover expenses for home care for his father for as long as he could remain in his own home. He found out that it would.
It would not cover assisted living for veterans; however, as that would be classified under a different aspect of the benefits that veterans are entitled to. The VA Aid and Attendance Benefit would provide financial assistance for his father so that he could have an in home care provider there with him during the day, or longer, depending on his level of need.
