armyvetmom3

On the pay charts for Disability and Compensation it says that if you have more than a 30% disability than you are suppose to get an additional amount if your spouse is on Aid and Attendance. I was rated at 90% with 100% unemployability from July 2010. My husband was on aid and attendance from 1982 until he passed away in 2018. I submitted a form that listed him as my dependant and that stated he was on AA and since his AA was from the VA they had the records to show that. I called several times and the lady always said that I didn't get anything that only my husband got AA and I did not get anything extra. I would like to know how I can get this corrected so that I can get the back pay that I am owed from July 2010 to the date of my husband's death on January 16, 2018.

Your back pay will be from the time you submitted the most current claim. Although, the temporary will start from right after your surgery. I don't know how long this will last because I haven't had back surgery. I have had knee replacement surgery and that temporary 100% lasts for 13 months. Then they go back and do a new exam and determine how much you permanent for that particular disability is and add that to your combined disability, (using VA math of course).

If the veteran was rated at 100% T& P for 10 years prior to death then the spouse is entitled to DIC. I they are 100 T & P for 10 years and die from a service connected disability they will bet a little more than just the base rate. If the veteran is retired from the military and paid into SBP then things get a little complicated. The least amount the spouse will get is the total of the DIC and $318 from the military for "special compensation" if the DIC is more than the SBP benefit. if the SBP is more than the DIC then they will get the DIC plus what ever amount that is left after subtracting the DIC from the SBP. Sucks but there it is. We pay and then we get screwed. I know this because my husband was retired with 100% disability in 1982. He paid into SBP because he had a brain tumor while in the army. He was 29 years old so we were never able to get life insurance on him. So the SBP and DIC were suppose to be the insurance for me after he passed. Well, I only get the DIC and $318 from the military because the SBP is less than the DIC. So basically I get $1599 from DIC and $318 from the army. Since my husband's sc disabilities were so severe he was receiving nearly $8000 a month from the VA. You can see where this has left me. Struggling to make ends meet. But all military spouses have the same or similar issues. There have been some protests and discussions about eliminating the DIC offset so that the surviving spouses can receive everything that they should be entitled to but with the way Congress is working right now, I don't see any meaningful legislation being passed. They are too concerned with investigations instead of the business of running the country.

I have figured your rating 3 times using the VA disability rating chart and I come up with 96% every time. That would mean you should get 100% since they round to the closest 10%. Hope you can get this worked out. Good luck.