News Break: Veterans Waiting Months, Years, for Home-Care Benefits

Veterans are having to wait too long for a special pension that helps pay for long-term care, experts say. Aid and Attendance, which covers in-home care and certain other services, “has been known to take more than a year to approve,” reports Fort Lauderdale’s Sun Sentinel.

The newspaper profiles a man who’s been waiting over four years for an appeal hearing. His case may be extreme, but he’s not alone in this waiting game.

“You’ve got people saying, ‘My mom’s going to die before they ever get this,’ ” said Sonja Kobrin, a vice president at V.I.P. Care Management in Lantana, who helps seniors navigate their benefits.

A woman in Wellington recently waited 14 months to get approval of benefits for her mother-in-law. Another, Aileen Indictor, 61, of Hobe Sound, filed for VA benefits for her mother in January 2012.

“We still haven’t received anything yet,” she said.

Aid and Attendance benefits are retroactive, based on your application date, as we explain in this article about getting help applying. But the long wait is a good reason to get that application rolling sooner rather than later.