It wasn’t all that long ago when Mike’s father slipped and fell while trying to change the light bulb outside the front door. Since then, Mike’s mother has been doing her best to try and take care of him, but she is having some of her own problems with her health. They talked about moving into a facility where they wouldn’t have to worry about some of these things, but the closest one would be too far from their home.
One thing that they hadn’t considered was veterans home care. For one, they didn’t know anything about the VA Aid and Attendance benefit, so they didn’t even know that Mike’s father might quality. It wasn’t until a mutual friend of theirs told Mike about it and then he began to look into it.
One of the first things that Mike learned was that if his father served during a time of conflict, as listed by the United States government, then he could be eligible to get some financial assistance to pay for home care at home. This would be a great way to get the help that he needed and he also learned that it could also help his mother as well.His father would need to show a requirement for home care, and with the doctor’s recommendation (not a VA doctor, though, since the closest VA hospital was more than 3 hours away), he might be eligible. There are a few other criteria that would need to be met, though, in order for his father to quality.
Mike sat down and talked to his father and mother about the Aid and Attendance pension and the first thing that his father said was that he had heard about it. Mike asked him why he never mentioned it and the response was that he didn’t think it applied to him. He said that he wasn’t injured or disabled in any combat. In fact, he told Mike that he never saw combat and never got closer than a thousand miles from any combat situation.
That didn’t matter, Mike told him. As long as he served at least 90 days in active duty in the U.S. military, which he had, and at least one of those days was during a time of conflict, which it was, and as long as he was honorably discharged from service, then he could qualify for the help.
The next step would be to apply through the VA, and that’s what they’re planning on doing this week.
