I am currently taking care of her. Would she be eligible foe the Aid and Attendant program, or the Home Bound program. I stopped working in December 2014, and am her primary caregiver Her neurologist revoked her driving license due to peripheral vision loss in both eyes.
Or contact Philly city offices and ask if they have a Veteran's service that helps people get VA benefits. These facilities are free to Veterans and will prepare the necessary papers as well as offer advice on whether or not you might qualified.
Another alternative is to contact local VFW or American Legion offices and ask if they, or another of their offices locally, help Vets and spouses qualify for aid. They're knowledgeable and have staff who can help vets and their families.
But under no circumstances hire anyone, attorney or otherwise, to help you get qualified, as you can get the services for free from the organizations listed above. It's also illegal to charge for this service.
Thank you for your help. My mother will be 82 on this coming Friday, October 18th.
It's isn't just someone's age; it's the service of the veteran, when, whether there were injuries and potential service connected disabilities, and a lot of other issues.
Who and where did you find the person that you enlisted to assist you in helping you?
Your father was a Korean War veteran, that must qualify him. Gather up some documents, such as the DD214 Discharge paper, their marriage license. Start there.
Are you able to look in the phone book - either federal or local listing - for Veteran's Affairs office (or something similar.) By the way, Dad was in the Korean War. He told stories of how he got out of the swimming test. He can't swim. If I recall, when it came to the swimming exercises, he was in the kitchen doing 'something' duty. I just realized that I never really paid attention to his stories. Too late, with his senility, he now confabulates his life story.
We found the local county office probably through brochures that I had picked up over the years, perhaps at the Area Agency on Aging annual expo, perhaps at the local Senior Center or its annual expo. I'm not sure. But then I also googled our county to check out what this office did.
This is its website, and provides an example of what a county office can do to assist veterans.
https://www.oakgov.com/veterans
My father had previously been qualified over a decade ago and was receiving health care benefits, but we decided to discontinue and stick with the private sector after:
(a) the VA primary care doctor changed a cardiac med without consulting my father's private cardiologist, who advised to ignore the VA doctors' change and stay on the cardiologist's choice of medicines.
We were stuck paying for 3 months of meds the VA sent, wouldn't take back and for which it wouldn't issue a credit. Then it charged interest on the unpaid bill while I battled them arguing that the med was not consistent with our private cardiologist's recommendation.
(b) The VA had major security breaches of thousand of veteran's records.
That was enough. We withdrew, but reconsidered several years later when Dad needed a new hearing aid. I got conflicting information from the VA on how to either re-apply, renew, or start all over again. So, I decided I might have to swallow my pride thinking I could handle all this, and decided to ask for help.
The Oakland County Veteran's services prepared all the forms and electronically sent them to the American Legion, which took it from there. It took less time than I had spent waiting on hold to speak with VA representatives.
We never had to do anything more until the VA contacted us directly and asked for additional information, which I supplied.
Dad reapplied for health benefits but also applied for service connected disability.
I did some checking for you. Here are some VA offices you can contact for this kind of assistance (and remember that it's totally free):
Philadelphia Veterans’ Advisory Commission:
http://www.phila.gov/veterans/Pages/default.aspx
I get the impression that this Commission doesn't really prepare the benefits forms, but it's worth a call as they may also be able to direct you to a city or state office that does.
PA Department of Military and Veteran’s Affairs:
http://www.dmva.pa.gov/Pages/default.aspx#.ViJs5TZdEfg
There are also some good links with more general information on both of these sites.
If you need additional help, either post here again or just PM me.
If you check out any of the brochures and their websites, if there's a "dot com" (.com) in the URL, they're for profit, and you'll end up providing them with information that they can use to sell you financial products. So go with the governmental agencies, or contact the American Legion (which handled Dad's) or the VFW directly and ask them which of their local offices handle assistance with qualification for benefits.
Good luck!