Veteran's Benefits
Steven C. Perlis, is a retired Lieutenant Commander Navy Judge Advocate with a combination of over 21½ of combined reserve and active duty service. His father was a first sergeant serving behind enemy lines in the European Theater during World War 2. Not surprisingly, respect for service members and their families, has become one of the unique contributions to the community by the Elder Law Office of Steven C. Perlis and Associates, PC.
Our office is dedicated to providing quality legal services in getting VA Aid & Attendance for certain veterans and their spouses. In doing this, we often shift the focus from waiting until it is time to move a loved one into a nursing home to a much earlier point in time. Obtaining VA payment for activities of daily living, through Aid and Attendance, may make the difference between the individual staying at home and otherwise being forced to move prematurely into a nursing home. As many of us know, nursing home costs are rising astronomically, and any benefit that might delay this move from occurring secures dignity and autonomy for the individual, and at the same time preserves resources for future care or for fulfilling the individual’s estate planning objectives, if at all possible. At the same time, knowledge of both Medicaid and Aid & Attendance is essential for making a reasonable choice between what often are mutually exclusive paths having very different rules and requirements for purposes of obtaining eligibility.
We see numerous clients who have heard bits and pieces about the Aid and Attendance benefits from other individuals who know very little about the consequence of what getting on Medicaid has on their eligibility for VA benefits. They also do not know anything about other federal and state programs that provide assistance in keeping individuals at home, but which operate separate and apart from VA Aid and Attendance.
We monitor our client's entire elder care journey at a relatively early point and stay with them throughout the entire process, thus achieving the result of earlier intervention, greater likelihood of remaining at home or at least out of a nursing home for a longer period of time, and ultimately retaining more autonomy and dignity for the elder and more peace of mind for the entire family.
The result of our knowledge of the system is to speed up the processing of claims at the VA Regional Office and result in a higher likelihood of success with the application process itself.