Veterans Home Care Guidelines
It’s not always easy trying to convince an elderly family member or friend they need help. When you consider veterans, these strong and independent individuals might have an even more difficult time accepting their own limitations. When it comes to home care support services for aging veterans, there comes a time and a place to make this consideration a reality.
For some veterans, though, the easiest way to shut down discussion about home care services is by talking about their limited income. If an elderly veteran is on a fixed income through a pension, Social Security, or retirement fund, they may have just enough every month to pay for their mortgage, rent, taxes on their property, food, medicine, and other basic necessities.
They may not have anything left over to even consider paying for home care aide, whether it’s just part-time, one or two days a week, or full-time care.
If that’s the case, the veteran might want to look into certain pensions that can help pay for home care services, such as the Aid and Attendance Benefit.
The Aid and Attendance Benefit is a pension program made available through Veterans Affairs that is designed for those men and women who have a specific and documentable requirement for home care support.
Why home care support may be necessary.
If a veteran has difficulty getting around on his or her own, requires the physical support of another person to help them get out of bed, get dressed, take a shower or bath, prepare meals, or even get to doctors’ appointments, that could be a documentable requirement for home care support.
If the senior cannot function on his or her own without somebody else supporting him, then that may be enough to help him look more seriously into the prospect of this pension program. However, it’s important to make note of other requirements for receiving this particular pension.
They need to have served 90 days, at a minimum, active duty service in one of the major branches of the United States military. A minimum of one of those days has to have fallen during an active time of combat, such as World War II, the Korean War, the Vietnam Conflict, and the Gulf War.
If the veteran or widow of a veteran meets that basic requirement, they should be encouraged to look into applying for it when home care is necessary.
For more information and to learn about Veterans Home Care Guidelines, contact Veteran’s Home Care at (888) 314-6075.
