Does spousal VA Aid and Attendance income affect Medicaid eligibility?

The main thing to remember is, if someone is already getting the Aid and Attendance benefit and they apply for Medicaid, their Aid and Attendance benefit will be reduced to a maximum of $90 per month. This $90 has to be spent on personal care items only.

I am replying to this question again. Apparently it must vary from state to state.

This is the rule for Wisconsin... I have had several face-to-face meetings with the Adult Senior Citizen Resource Advisory in my county on several occasions and feel 100% confident this is how it works.) All income counts in Wisconsin which includes SS and VA A&A award. My mom needed to spend down her assets UNTIL they were less than $2000 before applying for Medicaid. She was allowed to keep $1500 in a burial fund (that is in addition to the $2000) as she is donating her body to science so I put that in a separate account to hold for later. You can have more money put aside for a funeral expenses but you need forms filled out by the funeral home you select, etc. and my mother wanted her body donated. So we are not having a funeral, just a small gathering of our family when the time comes. My mother receives about $1100 a month for Veterans and about $770 for social security. I have a separate account for her VA money and when it gets large enough to pay a month of the memory care, I pay from there. I do not use the Veteran's funds for anything else. All of her assets are in another account (from the cashed in life insurance policy and the sale of her stock). This account is also linked to a direct deposit of her social security each month. So I pay from this the other months until the VA builds up again. The senior resource advisor told me that many places let you prepay a month of her memory care (I checked and hers does) which then will give the senior resource agency/Medicaid office 60 days to do the paperwork to have my mom qualify for Medicaid. On Feb. 1st of this month, I am going to pay two months for the memory care, which includes taking the Feb. 1st SS and VA money... she will have about $600 left over.... but she will get SS and VA money again March 1st which will put her over $2000 so I am going to spend down her funds (legitimately) by buying her toiletries, putting money aside at the center for her haircuts and outings, purchasing a few new clothing items she needs, etc. That way when they check her bank balances it will always be under $2000 and they can spend time processing the paperwork (which I have all filled out and will submit on Feb. 1). They will then have all of Feb. and March to process it. This should be enough time to qualify her. Then April 1st, Medicaid will assume payments of my mother's stay. I will be assigned a liaison and all SS and Vet money will go to her (to defray the cost of the monthly amount of her memory care- of which Medicaid will pay the remainder) and my mother can keep only $100 each month for incidentals/any medical stuff that she needs that Medicaid does not pay for.

I am only replying again because some replies say that it does not count towards qualifying. In Wisconsin (and I would bet most places) it does count.

I hope this was clear. If it is not, please write again.

I did have a 7 months wait for VA after I went to the office numerous times. And we had a long wait to cash in the stock also. I did not want this happen to Medicaid as my mother will have spent her personal money and there would not be enough to pay beginning April 1st. I have been very pro-active and I advise you to do the same. Also, some of these things are complicated so I have gone to the correct source. Based on the variances of replies, I think it would be helpful to go to a specialist in your own county/state.

Good Luck!

I will recheck our manual when i get into work tomm. But i rem'd that from training. Hope it helps! ✌

Hi, thanks for the reply with the great info. My mother in-law is in an assisted living facility in Ohio. They have a required 18 month period of private pay before they will accept Medicaid funds under a Assisted Living Waiver program. We applied for and have received the VA A&A award for her as a widowed spouse of a Veteran. The cost of her care is rising and we feel we will need to get her onto Medicare when the 18 months is up.
Since the A&A funds put her over the upper limit of income each month for Medicaid eligibility - that was my concern. I tried calling our local Medicaid office and the states Medicaid Hotline and no one could answer my question.

So, Thank you! If it's not to be considered as income for eligibility, she should be able to qualify.

msgarrett, when your local VA told you about CA retirement homes, were they speaking of retirement homes in general, or were they referring to only VA retirement homes? I ask because I have heard there are very few VA retirement homes and a long waiting list for each one.

I was told at our local VA center in Riverside, CA that California has the best retirement homes and some offer more benefits than others. So if you have a parent with Alzheimer's then they need to be in a center that will handle that. My parents are living in Utah and my Mom is living at the Panguitch Hospital in the Long Term Care center because she has Alzheimer's and my Dad lives with my brother about a mile from the hospital. My Mom finally got her Medicare after my brother got tired of all the red tape my Dad was going thru and he called the Utah Governor and within 2 days he got a call back from the Governor's office to tell him that my Mom was officially on Medicare! So if you have issues call your Governor or other top official and get help.

This is an excellent link that you've provided, Mr. Heiser. I am slogging through the whole confusing government explanation. FYI, we have been looking for a retirement home for my dad who has worsening sundowners and a variety of other annoying ailments including heart disease. Is it wrong to expect to use his not-insignificant VA pension to pay for that? We are also looking at different states, as our siblings are spread out between the NJ/CT and west coasts.

My Vet Dad has a disabled adult daughter who is taken into account in the determination of the amount of his monthly benefit. Do you know if she will have any benefits similar to a "non-veteran spouse of a living veteran" when he is in nursing home or if he dies?

Interesting that some answers seem to me to disagree. I guess it's because Medicaaid is a state run program.

I work for Medicaid in NC & A&A is discounted from the budgeting process. So whatever the cost of A&A is, it is not counted as income for Medicaid purposes

I just found this wonderful, detailed explanation of your situation, here:
http://www.veteransaidbenefit.org/aid_and_attendance_pay_nursing_home.htm

This is from my book, Medicaid Secrets (www.MedicaidSecrets.com):

Pension and Medicaid. Note that the “aid and attendance allowance” or “housebound allowance” portion of a Pension payment does not count as “income” for Medicaid purposes. This could be important should the veteran or spouse ever need to apply for Medicaid. Also note that while a VA pension recipient is not required to apply for Medicaid, a Medicaid applicant must apply for all benefits to which he or she may be entitled before Medicaid payments will be made to reimburse a facility. So a Medicaid applicant must determine if he or she may be entitled to VA Pension and if so, is required to apply for it.
If a VA Pension or Death Pension recipient, with no spouse or child, is a patient in a nursing home and has qualified for Medicaid coverage, then the Pension or Death Pension amount cannot exceed $90 per month, after the end of the third full calendar month following the month of admission to a VA-run (VHA) nursing home or starting with eligibility for Medicaid in a private nursing home (after the month of admission). Note that veterans residing in state-run veterans’ homes are exempt from this $90-per-month limit. Such $90/month payment is not considered income and does not have to be paid to the nursing home, and it is paid in addition to the personal needs allowance.

Once you are approved for medicaid the VA A&A benefits will drop to 80.00 a month. This is the stipend that medicaid allows for personal items each mo. If they did not have VA benefits then medicaid would give them 60.00 a month as a stipend. They are both government programs so its an either or can't have both benefits at the same time.

Yes, You can only have $2000 or less in your assets to apply for Medicaid. And once eligible and qualified, it is my understanding that you can keep $100/month of any incoming income combined (VA Aid/Attendance and SS/ and other).