Question for Aid and Attendance

[Marcelino.Rodriguez]

I am 100% Permanent and Total as follows:

100% for COPD

100% for Prostate cancer

70% for PTSD

60% for Chronic Fatigue Syndrome

40% for fibromyalgia

30% for Irritable syndrome

Others to include bone fractures, hearing loss, tinnitus

I have SMC K and SMC S

I am 81 years old

I am trying to get Aid and Attendance via a Special Monthly Compensation. Do you have any ideas that may help me?

Thanks.

[broncovet]

Yes.  Have you applied and been denied?  If you have not applied, then download the form and apply:

https://www.va.gov/find-forms/about-form-21-2680/

This will trigger a c and p exam, as a doc will need to confirm you need Aid and attendance.  

NOTE:    ITS ok if you are currently getting aid and attendance from a family member.  You can continue to get A and A from a spouse or family member and still receive VA comp for it.  Its in the regulations.  

If you have been denied, you will need to appeal.  

You need to show you need help with ADL's   (Activities of dailiy living, such as eating, going to the bathroom, bathing, cooking, dressing etc.). 

 

[Lemuel]

There are two kinds of aid and attendance.  One is through the Health side and the other is through the other through the benefits side.  Health side is approved by your Primary Care team.  Which I have.  The social worker determines the hours.  I think it is called "directed care".  That is what I am getting.  I am approved for 14 hours per week.  Just fired Home Instead because they crammed the allotted hours into once a day in the work week instead of providing what they said they could.  An hour, morning and evening and a driver to appointments.  

I am applying for PCAFC which is paid for by the VA for a family member to take care of you.  They can live nearby, like my sister and a system can be set up.  I need my medications monitored by a Nurse.  The Nurse comes to fill my medication dispenser once a week.  That would keep your family member from having to worry about that and lessen the stress on them.  Plus if you have a TBI, it would make you eligible for SMC-T.  Just learned that here from a Rattler post on Haskell v McDonough.  Search it, it is on Google.  The hearing.  Not the decision.  The decision has not posted at the CAVC yet.

My understanding is that the additional care causes you to move up the SMC ladder not down it.

7 minutes ago, broncovet said:

Yes.  Have you applied and been denied?  If you have not applied, then download the form and apply:

https://www.va.gov/find-forms/about-form-21-2680/

This will trigger a c and p exam, as a doc will need to confirm you need Aid and attendance.  

NOTE:    ITS ok if you are currently getting aid and attendance from a family member.  You can continue to get A and A from a spouse or family member and still receive VA comp for it.  Its in the regulations.  

If you have been denied, you will need to appeal.  

You need to show you need help with ADL's   (Activities of dailiy living, such as eating, going to the bathroom, bathing, cooking, dressing etc.). 

 

 

[broncovet]

Ok, since you have been denied, was it within a year?  You need to appeal by filing a nod.  If you list the reasons and bases from the decision, we can help word the denial.