Vets get benefits they didn't know they had

By Kyung M. Song
Seattle Times staff reporter

STEVE RINGMAN / THE SEATTLE TIMES
Loretta Jordan, at her Bellevue home, is "still in shock" that the VA covers the cost of her husband's nursing-home care.Every month for most of the past decade, Benjamin "Frank" Jordan has forked over as much as $2,000 of his Social Security and veterans benefits to help Medicaid offset the cost of his nursing-home care.

What Jordan didn't know was that he shouldn't have paid a cent.

Jordan, a Navy veteran with a service-connected disability, should have gotten his nursing-home care free from the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA). Now Jordan, 71, who uses a wheelchair, has his room at a Mercer Island nursing home completely paid for from nearly $40,000 a year in newfound veterans benefits, thanks to a state program that matches poor veterans with thousands of dollars in federal benefits they've missed.

"My husband keeps saying we can spend money now, but I'm still in shock," said Jordan's wife, Loretta, 68, who lives in the couple's home in Bellevue.

The Veterans Enhancement Project, which began in Clark County in 2001, was the first in the nation to use a database, originally created to catch welfare cheats, to stretch Washington's Medicaid budget by finding people eligible for VA benefits instead.

So far it has boosted benefits for more than 300 Medicaid nursing-home patients in Western Washington, officials say. Nearly 40 of those have left Medicaid completely. Another 2,000 vets and their dependents have been enrolled in military health plans.

Are you eligible for VA benefits?

• Generally, honorably discharged veterans who had at least two years of active service can apply to receive medical care from the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA). The VA may also pay for nursing-home care for veterans with at least 70 percent service-connected disability. Also, veterans who meet income limitations and served at least 90 days of active duty, with at least one day during a period of war (including the beginning of the Gulf War in 1990 to the present) and who are totally disabled or 65 or older can apply to get a VA pension.
• The VA also may pay tax-free disability compensation to veterans who were injured while on active duty or whose conditions were made worse by active military service.
In addition, military retirees and their spouses and children, along with widows or widowers of veterans who died or were disabled by service-related conditions, may be eligible for health-care coverage.
For more information, contact the Veterans Project at the state Department of Health and Social Services, 800-280-0586 or www.aasa.dshs.wa.gov/topics/paris; or contact the state Department of Veterans Affairs at 800-562-2308 or www.dva.wa.gov.

The project, which is now reaching into Eastern Washington and being emulated in other states, saved Washington Medicaid an estimated $3.5 million last fiscal year.

Medicaid, a health-insurance program for the poor, is funded equally by Washington state and the federal government. Medicaid patients can pay certain living expenses with their monthly incomes, but must use any remainder to cover the cost of their nursing-home care. And state law requires Medicaid to recover remaining long-term-care costs — on which it spends more than $1.2 billion a year — from the beneficiaries' estates after they and their spouses die.

Veterans, on the other hand, do not have to repay VA benefits because they earned them by serving in the military. Yet VA officials admit they have failed to contact many eligible veterans or their dependents about billions of dollars in unclaimed pensions and disability payments.

Loretta Jordan had worried for years that the couple's assets would be used to repay Medicaid. Frank Jordan bought his house near Clyde Hill for $65,000 in 1979. The house is now paid off and assessed at $445,000. In 1995, Frank Jordan deeded the house to Loretta to keep the house out of reach of Medicaid estate recovery. Even so, Medicaid could go after any other property, vehicles, savings and assets owned jointly by Frank and Loretta Jordan after their deaths.

Many others share the Jordans' situation. Roughly 670,000 veterans live in Washington — more than 10 percent of the state's population. When spouses and dependent children are considered, the total number of people potentially eligible for veterans benefits could be more than twice that. But only 5 percent of all Medicaid patients currently receiving long-term care are collecting VA benefits, said Bill Allman, who launched the new program as a manager for the state Department of Social and Health Services.

"That number should be higher," he said. "A lot of veterans don't know they have veterans benefits."

Allman, a Vietnam veteran, said he started the program partly as a personal quest to use the welfare database to help both vets and the state save money.

For many veterans, financial gains have been unexpected.

Charles St. George Jr. is a Navy veteran who suffered a stroke in 2002. St. George, 73, who lived in a studio apartment near SeaTac and has never married, applied for Medicaid after depleting all but $2,000 of his savings.

Until this year, the retired Delta Air Lines reservations agent was paying about $1,200 a month, most of his veterans and Social Security income, for a room at a Federal Way nursing home and later at an Auburn adult home.

Then on May 1, his longtime friend, Loretta Abel, who has power of attorney to care for St. George, discovered that his bank account was suddenly nearly $20,000 richer.

"I was flipping out there," Abel said.

But it turned out the money was a lump-sum pension payment from the VA.

Allman had discovered that St. George had become entitled to a full VA pension of $1,397 a month when he moved from the nursing home to the adult home.
Veterans in nursing homes receive only $90 a month. But those residing in adult homes, assisted-living facilities or their own homes can get their full pensions. The $19,595 deposit was a 15-month retroactive payment.

St. George's $1,300 in extra VA benefits now go to Medicaid, reducing the state's expense. Allman said few veterans notify the VA when they move out of a nursing home because they don't know the rules.

Abel said she was happy to have the extra money for her friend — once the shock wore off.

"If someone's going to give me $19,000, it would have been nice if they'd called me" first, she said.

As for the Jordans, they say they're grateful that the VA is finally paying the pension and all the nursing-home costs.

But elation is mixed with rue. Because of their particular situation, the Jordans are unlikely to collect on their missed benefits.

"All those thousands of dollars we paid over the years," Loretta Jordan said. "We could have had that for our savings."

Source: http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2003271974_veterans23m.html

Military Connection's Comments: Getting important information out to those who can benefit from the knowledge is of the utmost importance to us at MilitaryConnection.com. We feel a responsibility to do so for all members of the military community, and most importantly to our Veterans. As this article exemplifies, awareness can result in thousands of dollars saved by those who can least afford to part with their savings and pensions. We are proud to offer another portal of military benefits information. We want to make the information easier to locate. The more this information is out front and center, the better the chances are that it will be seen. Our goal is to reach as many Veterans and men and women in uniform as we can. Spread the word…when the last tour is at home, make it on MilitaryConnection.com .