Veterans Assisted Living Options for those who need it

Be aware of Medicare and Private insurance

It is not a well kept secret that the veterans assisted living options are limited. Men and women who have fought in wars defending sometimes little more than the honor of our country deserve the absolute best from our country in return.

Unfortunately it is not the best they receive, and their choices are limited when it comes to residential housing if they choose or need to use the governmental assistance provided to them.
 
VA care has in fact come a long way since the sixties and seventies, but it has yet to reach a standard that is acceptable considering the sacrifice these men and women willingly gave to their country.

Residential care is not just something to be considered by the retired and elderly members of the armed forces.

Rather an individual that returns from war with severe enough injuries may also need residential care.

Ongoing medical care may be necessary for the rest of a young man or woman’s life and in some cases independent living may no longer be an option.
 
The benefits for retired service people are extremely limited.

The qualification process is quite stringent and simply applying for approval can take as long as a year.

• There are restrictions based on how long and when service to the country was commenced as well as war based qualifications.
• The qualifications are so stringent that the approval process is determined on a case by case basis, which is why approval takes so long.
• A person in an emergency situation is likely to run into significant problems when applying for this type of aid.
   
  A service person’s liquid assets can not exceed $80,000 and while the benefits offered can be combined with Medicare and private insurance, the benefits significantly drop when combined.

If an individual is approved, the benefits are limited to less than $1500 per month. Considering the average retirement home runs closer to twice that amount, the standard of care available for a retired service person is truly minimal. A widowed spouse is only entitled to less than $1000.

The spouse of an approved service person is strictly limited to their entitlement of liquid assets and financial reserves. This is standard practice for nearly all insurance coverage pertaining to long term care facilities.

However because each case is handled individually it is not clear how much money a spouse can have access to until the case is either approved or denied. This means that the system itself is quite subjective.

One spouse may be permitted twice the amount of another spouse based entirely on the opinion of the value of service performed while in active duty.

Of course the limited benefits are enough to cover monthly expenses in specified VA retirement communities and most retired or dependent service personnel find themselves with little choice other than to accept the limited services offered to them.

This eliminates the ability to choose the location of the extended residential care. Long term care provided by the armed services has definitely improved over the past few decades, but an individual could find better care if they had the freedom to choose the care residence.

This lack of choice that is provided by the armed forces feels like a slap in the face to many service men and women.

They are quick to state that they offered their service without regard to their personal safety and the only thing they are looking for in return is to be reasonably taken care of in response to their injury or advancing age.

 
The government offers that there are limited funds available to provide the type of assistance they feel would be more appropriate and that the advancements made in military care are just the beginning.

The government also released a statement that initializes that the stringent and subjective approval process is there to protect the benefits for all and by deciding issues on a case by case basis they are eliminating or greatly reducing fraud.

In 2004 the government stated if they could eliminate about 50% of the welfare recipients there would be ample funds to improve the standard of long term care offered to service personnel.
 
Naturally many younger service personnel are preparing for their own futures to eliminate the potential need to rely on government assistance.

If the government’s assessment of the funds availability problem is accurate we should see a sharp incline in the quality of long term care in the next twenty to thirty years as about 50% of retired military personnel will have their own resources to combat the problem.
 
This of course does not solve the issues faced by our current retired forces when attempting to access long term care, and there is always hope for radical improvements as the current government begins to change faces. Men and women who served their country deserve at the very least our best standard of care. 

starting an assisted living business