Veterans Benefits 101

According to the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, there were 442,579 veterans in the state of Missouri in 2017. Those veterans received $1.6 million in medical care, as well as $1.7 million in compensation and pension payments throughout that fiscal year. 

“Veterans benefits serve as a thank you—and as recognition that veterans have sacrificed for our country and have unique needs,” says Mike Weeks, an estate planning and elder law attorney at The Weeks Group in St. Charles.

“There is a whole medical system—including hospitals and clinics—that can provide free and reduced-cost health care, particularly for veterans who were injured,” adds Brian Quinn, an elder law and estate planning lawyer at Quinn Estate & Elder Law in Manchester. “Other benefits can include education, home loans and benefits for surviving spouses and children.”

Many benefits are offered at the federal level, including: 

• Burial in a National Cemetery
• The G.I. Bill
• The VA Health System: Veterans often seek Quinn’s expertise “when they are starting to have long-term care issues,” he says. Weeks adds that veterans receive “direct care at a VA hospital or clinic. Occasionally, private care is available.”
• Service-Connected Disability Compensation: Quinn refers to this program as “the VA’s workers’ compensation system,” and notes that the injury doesn’t need to be related to combat. “It just matters that you were injured during your active-duty service,” he says. “The VA will rate you on a scale from 0 to 100 percent of your disability. The payments are monthly and are typically between $3,000 to $4,000 for a rating at the highest level.” 
• Pension With Aid and Attendance: “Think of this as the VA’s long-term care insurance benefit,” says Quinn. “This provides monthly benefits to wartime veterans and their surviving spouses,” and is reserved for low-income veterans with few assets. He adds: “To determine your income, they take medical expenses into account as well.”

Missouri State Benefits 

Beyond federal benefits, there are also a limited number of veterans benefit programs offered by the state. According to Weeks, the Missouri Veterans Homes program is the most substantial state benefit, providing seven nursing-style facilities with a total of 1,238 beds. 

“These homes are for veterans who have been residents of the state for at least a six-month period,” Quinn says. “This care is not available to surviving spouses.” 

Eligibility Criteria

“Each benefit program has its own eligibility criteria,” says Weeks. “The criteria that is generally pretty standard is: You have to have had a discharge other than dishonorable.”

Discharge classification, however, is merely the tip of the eligibility iceberg. For example, veterans and their surviving spouses are eligible for a VA pension only “if the veteran served at least 90 consecutive days in active duty—with a day during a period of war—and the discharge was not dishonorable,” Quinn says of those who served before 1980. For more recent veterans, the term is 24 months or the full period they were called up for service. 

Veterans applying for the VA’s service-connected disability compensation program must have been, he continues, “injured during service, and continue to suffer from those injuries at the time of application.” 

If veterans meet the benefit’s requirements, they should be approved. Unfortunately, the process of securing these benefits can be confusing and drawn-out. “You’ll find that, with most things with the VA, there is the rule—and then there are the exceptions to the rule,” Weeks says.  

Denial of Benefits

As with eligibility criteria, no two benefit applications look the same. When a benefit is denied, veterans can appeal the decision. The VA’s review system is a multistep process that starts with a caseworker and can extend all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court. “The process is long and involves a lot of back and forth—which can be frustrating for the client and their attorney,” Quinn says. “For the most part, you want to try and win at the caseworker level.”

Another obstacle is a lack of awareness: Many veterans don’t know they have these benefits. “The VA has poor community outreach,” says Quinn. “I think it is up to us attorneys to educate veterans about their benefit eligibility.”