March Madness Is Heating Up!

I love it when March rolls around. You can guarantee great basketball, green beer and a month before taxes are due from last year’s profits. Also, my children (twins) celebrate their birthday each March. This year the Final Four is being hosted in Atlanta, Georgia, where I live. The energy of the city really ratchets up and it feels vibrant just to be in the buzz of it all.

There is a different kind of buzz in March for our Veterans who are receiving a pension with Aid and Attendance benefit — tax free income to help offset the high cost of medical care. To receive Improved Pension with either Housebound or Aid and Attendance, Veterans must meet financial criteria ensuring their income and assets are below certain limitations. Due to this, historically, the VA required an annual review of income, assets, and medical expenses to be filed no later than March 1st.

This year the VA decided to eliminate the formal review process and no longer requires beneficiaries of the pension to send in a review. Instead, the VA is cross-referencing reported income with the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and Social Security databases. This sounds very efficient for the VA. However, it will create madness for Veterans who are receiving the pension when their benefits are terminated because they followed what they believed the VA to mean in their letters that an annual review is no longer necessary.

A claimant or beneficiary of the VA pension must still report, every year, the amount of out-of-pocket medical expenses he paid that was not reimbursed by any other source. Since the pension is awarded based on a reduction of income due to medical expenses, then the medical expenses must be reported. Otherwise, when the VA cross-checks income with the IRS and Social Security, it will appear the Veteran has too much income (because the medical expenses are not cross-referenced). It is up to the Veteran to ensure the VA receives verification of all medical expenses each year.

The deadline to submit medical expenses is no longer March 1st of each year. Instead, it is December 31st of the year after the medical expenses were incurred. Plenty of time to gather the information needed. Also, plenty of time for the Veteran to delay and forget to file them.

I foresee a March madness of a different kind beginning in 2014, the year after the VA eliminated the annual review, when Veterans’ benefits begin to be terminated for lack of proper notice of medical expenses. For lawyers who are practicing in this area, I recommend you make room on your calendar beginning in March 2014 for the calls you will receive asking for help to reinstate benefits. To be proactive, putting an advertisement in a local newspaper in February 2014 informing Veterans of your available assistance would likely prove to be fruitful. The client, who has come to rely on the monthly income, will be in distress and will need to know who can help.

For more information, or to become a member of Lawyers With Purpose, LLC, an organization with a mission of “Creating a world where people can protect what’s important to them and where client-centered lawyers can be valued for the peace of mind they help provide,” go to www.lawyerswithpurpose.com.

Victoria L. Collier, Certified Elder Law Attorney, Fellow of the National Academy of Elder Law Attorneys, Co-Founder, Lawyers with Purpose, LLC, and author of 47 Secret Veterans’ Benefits for Seniors…Benefits You Have Earned but Don’t Know About.