Final Veterans Edition: Navigate the Maze of VA Pensions with Confidence

Also in this edition: latest news on changes happening (and not happening) at the VA; how to qualify and successfully apply for VA benefits; why my father never received VA benefits and how to avoid his mistake

Author

Ben Couch
February 25, 2025

In this edition:

This is our “final episode” in the veterans trilogy of newsletters. After polling subscribers for the last two weeks, the subject for this final newsletter in the series was clear: readers are most interested in learning about qualifying for pensions and the Aid and Attendance benefit, so that’s the topic we’re tackling!

We’re going to take a quick trip through some of the top news stories from the week, and then we’ll dive right into the financial support info that you wanted to hear more about! After that, I’m debuting “Ben’s Corner,” an op-ed section that I’ll write every week to add a personal touch. This week I’m sharing a story about my father’s experiences as a World War II veteran.

Top News of the Week

There is still a lot of conflicting information and contradictory opinions swirling around recent and potential changes to the VA in Washington. Because there are so many unknowns in play, the best thing I think we can do is stay calm, educate ourselves on facts, form opinions based on evidence, and try to find some positive news every day to enjoy and share.

Show Me the Benefits!

A word about my approach in this issue: there are many books dedicated to navigating veterans benefits, and the specifics seem to be changing every day—especially in the current political climate.

Because of this, I’ve focused on providing the overview you need to successfully jump into the fray. Below, you’ll get the big picture of what each benefit is, how to apply, and the major qualifying factors in play. While I can’t address every possibility, you’re going to be armed with the info you need to ask the right questions and get the best answers. So, let’s get started!

The Inside Track: VA Pensions

“The Veterans Pension program provides monthly payments to wartime Veterans who meet certain age or disability requirements, and who have income and net worth within certain limits.”

Qualifying for the VA Pension

The starting point for our discussion is the tax-free Veterans Pension program. Qualifying for the pension is a prerequisite for eligibility for the other supplemental programs we’ll discuss below: the Aid and Assistance Program and the Housebound Program. Let’s see if you’re eligible.

Service Requirements for Pension Eligibility

First: in order to qualify for the VA Pension, your service must first meet the following requirements.

  1. Your service dates occurred as follows:

  • You started on active duty before September 8, 1980, and you served at least 90 days on active duty with at least 1 day during wartime, or

  • You started on active duty as an enlisted person after September 7, 1980, and served at least 24 months or the full period for which you were called or ordered to active duty (with some exceptions) with at least 1 day during wartime, or

  • You were an officer and started on active duty after October 16, 1981, and you hadn’t previously served on active duty for at least 24 months

  1. You were not dishonorably discharged. (Did you know that you can apply for a discharge upgrade for a number of reasons?)

Note: despite the “wartime” requirement, combat experience is NOT required.

For all of the nuanced specifics, including which time periods count as “wartime,” see this VA link.

Financial Requirements for Pension Eligibility

The financial requirements are a little more complicated, but not overwhelming. The main point is that your net worth cannot exceed $159,240 (as of this writing). If you’re feeling brave and you have a cup of coffee ready, you can read the official regulations here. That will give you the exact legal language, but the basics are as follows:

Assets that count toward your net worth include (but are not limited to):

  • Money and investments (e.g. stock and bonds)

  • The fair value of your real property (houses, land, etc.) and personal property (cars, clothing, equipment, etc.)

  • Boats

  • Antique furniture

  • And so on…

The following are not considered assets, so they won’t count toward that $159,240 “magic number”:

  • Your primary residence

  • Your car

  • Appliances (things you wouldn’t take to a new house)

To determine eligibility, you count up the value of your assets and add your annual income. If that’s less then $159,240, then you’re financially eligible. Below, I’ve reproduced an example that the VA offers on their Current Pension Rates page. (By the way, that page has a lot of clarifications about the financial requirements, so I highly recommend reading it!)

VA Net Worth Example: “If you had $121,000 in assets and $14,000 in annual income for VA purposes, then your net worth would be $135,000. This is less than the net worth limit of $159,240. So you would be eligible for Veterans Pension benefits.”

The Three-Year Lookback

When you apply for the pension, be careful about the three-year lookback period. It’s what the VA uses to protect itself against the scammers, but it could accidentally trip you up too. Essentially, the regulation says that you can’t gift assets or sell them for less than fair market value to drive down your net worth artificially and make yourself eligible. Make sure things are in order before you apply, or you could incur up to a five-year penalty period of ineligibility.

Maximum Annual Pension Rate (MAPR), AKA…

Now we’re getting down to the brass tacks. Jerry Maguire would be glad that I’m finally going to show you the money! Once you’ve qualified for a pension, the amount will be dictated by a series of factors including:

  • Do you have dependents? If so, how many?

  • What are your medical expenses?

  • Are you married to another veteran?

  • And a few other factors you’ll find laid out in detail here

Want to see the complete breakdown? Take a look at this page (scroll toward the bottom) for all of the details. The short story? MAPRs have a wide range depending on the above factors. They can currently range from $16,965/year on the low end to $22,216 on the high end. This is the base pension before adding in either the Aid and Attendance benefit or the Housebound benefit. We’re going to talk more about those benefits below.

Applying for a VA Pension

Once you’ve gathered all of your information and checked your eligibility requirements, you’re ready to get started on the application process. The links below will show you the application options and begin walking you through the process.

That takes us through applying for the base veterans pension. As mentioned above, once you are approved for that pension, you have two possible add-ons that we’ll discuss below: the Aid and Attendance benefit and the Housebound benefit.

Pension Add-on: Aid and Attendance

The Aid and Attendance benefit was created to assist veterans (and surviving spouses) who need to cover the costs of assistance with the activities of daily living (ADLs) like dressing and bathing. The main purpose of the program is to assist with paying for in-home care, assisted living care, or nursing home care.

The Aid and Attendance benefit is an “add-on” to the pension program. That means that you must be approved for the pension first. If you don’t have a VA pension, you cannot receive the Aid and Attendance benefit. Another note: the Aid and Attendance Benefit and the Housebound benefit are mutually exclusive. You can have Aid and Attendance OR you can have the Housebound benefit, but you cannot have both. The Aid and Attendance benefit generally has a higher payout.

Eligibility for Aid and Attendance:

Because you will have already qualified the pension program at this point, your service requirements are already verified and your financial eligibility is established. As a result this application process (and the Housebound process) are somewhat streamlined. The basic requirements you must meet to be eligible for Aid and Attendance are:

  • You have already been approved for a VA Pension

  • At least one of the following is true:

    • You need another person to help you perform daily activities, like bathing, feeding, and dressing, or

    • You have to stay in bed—or spend a large portion of the day in bed—because of illness, or

    • You are a patient in a nursing home due to the loss of mental or physical abilities related to a disability, or

    • Your eyesight is limited (even with glasses or contact lenses you have only 5/200 or less in both eyes; or concentric contraction of the visual field to 5 degrees or less)

What Does It Pay Out?

You can find all of the details on this page, but I’ll reproduce the simplest example here so you can get an idea.

If you have no dependents and…

Your payout amount in US $ is…

If you only have the pension, but you don’t have A&A or Housebound

$16,965

If you qualify for the pension and the Housebound benefit

$20,732

If you qualify for the pension and the A&A benefit

$28,300

How to Apply for the Aid and Attendance Benefit

The application process for this benefit is a little more “old school.” As of this writing, I find no way to submit the application online. It must be either mailed or delivered to a VA Regional Office in person. (Come on, VA. Get with the times!)

The process is described in detail at this VA page: VA Aid and Attendance benefits and Housebound allowance.

In order to apply, you’ll need one or both of the forms on this page.

  • Form 21-2680: this is the form that everyone must fill out in order to apply.

  • Form 21-0779: a supplement your application with this form if you’re a resident of a nursing home and you're providing supporting information for your application for VA Aid and Attendance benefits.

That’s everything you need to know to get started on the Aid and Attendance benefit. Let’s finish up our discussion with…

Pension Add-on: The Housebound Benefit

The Housebound benefit provides a supplement to the pension payment, just like the Aid and Attendance benefit. It generally pays out less money. (See the table in the previous section for an example.)

According to the VA, “you may be eligible for this benefit if you get a VA pension and you spend most of your time in your home because of a permanent disability (a disability that doesn’t go away).” To be eligible, at least one of the following must be true:

  • You have a single, permanent disability that’s rated as 100% disabling, and this means you’ll always need to be in your home or another living space most of the time, or

  • You have a single, permanent disability rated as 100% disabling and at least one other disability rated as 60% or more disabling (VA.gov)

How to Apply for the Housebound Benefit

Again, this is a streamlined process because your service and finances will have already been qualified when you were approved for your pension.

The process is exactly the same as applying for the Aid and Attendance benefit, even down to the form you use. You will fill out Form 21-2680 and send it in by mail or deliver it in person to your Regional VA Office.

Wow! We made it. Above, we covered three major benefits to provide tens of thousands more dollars per year to veterans, the eligibility requirements for those benefits, and the application processes. I’ve also linked you to a tremendous number of VA resources that have been my sources for this week’s newsletter.

There are also several well-rated books that you can find on Amazon if you want a deeper dive into these issues:1

This wraps up our series on veterans benefits. One of my dreams with this newsletter is to help people get better care because of the things we talk about. If this information has helped you, I would love to hear about it. You can send me any stories at [email protected]. I’d love to hear from you.

Ben’s Corner: My Father—the Man in the Maze

Ben’s Corner is a new feature in the newsletter. It’s going to be an op-ed that I offer each week. It might be a story, a best practice, a commentary, or anything else that I think might help you out on any given week. I’d love to hear what you think!

A friend told me a story once about a team building exercise she went through with her company. A group of people on a corporate retreat was placed in a maze and blindfolded. They were told they could look for the exit for as long as they were willing. If they ever wanted to receive help, they could raise their hand and someone would lead them out.

My friend started mapping the maze out in her mind as she stumbled through it. She was sure she was on the perimeter, but then she got mixed up as she kept having to make turns. She’s as stubborn as a mule and wandered for a couple hours. She eventually stopped hearing the voices of her colleagues. Was she the only person who hadn’t found the way out? Defeated, she finally raised her hand.

The punchline: the only way out of the maze was for her to raise her hand and ask for help. All of the exits had been closed off. That was the point of the drill. How often do we refuse to ask for help? Her ego and pride got in her way. I’m sure I would have done the same thing she did! Would you?

However, sometimes the only answer, the only way out, is to raise your hand.

My father was a veteran of World War II, and he spent his life lost in the maze and refusing to raise his hand. The VA programs and health care could have assisted him so much, especially at the end of his life when he had dementia and needed more care than my mom could provide (but did anyway). He could have worked with the VA to get assistance: instead, my mother—as an untrained caregiver—injured herself providing physical care for a person too large for her to manage on her own.

I think about how different their final years could have been if my dad would have just raised his hand. Health care could have been provided through the VA instead of depleting their savings. Funding could have been procured for home health care so mom could have maintained her own health. Things could have been so much better than they were.

I’m a lot like my father, for good and ill. I hope that when the time comes, I will have learned the lesson he missed. I hope I will raise my hand when I’m stuck in the maze.

My dad didn’t live to see the only benefit he ever received: a military funeral and burial in a national cemetery. If you are entitled to veterans benefits, I hope this series has inspired you to look at your options and get the benefits you deserve.

From the bottom of my heart, thank you for your service.

🙏Would You Help Support the Cause?🙏

Has The Dementia Newsletter helped you? If so, would you consider using this link or the QR code below to give us a little boost too? Even a dollar makes a big difference. When you donate, I’ll give you a personal shout-out in the next edition of the news letter!

If this newsletter has helped you, help us keep it going

Weekly gratitude!

Thanks to the following subscribers for their donations last week!

  • Trudi F, Manuel N, Juliet P, Jean P, Margaret J

I appreciate you so much!

At The Dementia Newsletter, we’re dementia professionals but we’re not medical doctors or lawyers. The information provided is for general informational purposes only and should not be considered as medical or legal advice. Always consult with a qualified healthcare professional for medical diagnosis, treatment, or any health-related concerns and consult with a lawyer regarding any legal matters.

1  I compiled this book list as an Amazon “affiliate.” If you’re interested in any of these books, buying them through the links above helps to support the newsletter. Thanks for considering it!