On September 21, 2020, the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) made a determination to eliminate more than 6,700 families from the Program of Comprehensive Assistance for Family Caregivers (PCAFC). Other families will have their monthly stipends reduced.
The families targeted by the VA are classified as “Legacy Participants”. These are families that were approved and designated by the VA as eligible for the PCAFC before October 1, 2020.
Families of veterans, with serious service-connected injuries, eliminated from the PCAFC will lose thousands of dollars a month. However, the VA claims that the families removed from the PCAFC won’t have their monetary stipend terminated until the beginning of 2023.
The VA determination was made to reassess the families to ensure that the “Legacy Participants” are still eligible under the new eligibility criteria. The VA has published an Eligibility Criteria Fact Sheet which lists the new criteria, which became effective October 1, 2020.
According to Program Executive Director Colleen Richardson, there are 33,000 participants enrolled in the PCAFC and 19,800 are classified as “Legacy Participants.” The VA projects more than 6,700 families will be “culled” from the PCAFC after the reassessment is complete.
The reassessment, according to the anticipated six-month plan, will include medical examinations and in-home visits to determine veterans’ independence and on-going assistance needs. Because of the Covid-19 virus, the in-home visits were conducted virtually.
Benefits contained in participating in the PCAFC include a monthly stipend, support services, counseling, enhanced respite care, education, training and certain travel expenses.
According to the VA, 107,000 caregivers, who became eligible in September of 2020, submitted applications for the PCAFC. Unfortunately, the VA only approved 13,000 caregivers for enrollment in the Program. Most of the recent VA PCAFC approvals were Vietnam War Veterans.
My Opinion: First, let me address the aspect of the “6,700 families” that are classified as “Legacy Participants” (by the VA) and are being terminated in early 2023 at the latest. They were initially approved by the VA and deemed eligible to be a caregiver for a disabled veteran.
Now, when I speak of “6,700 families,” I am also speaking of 6,700 disabled veterans and 6,700 of their caregivers. The impact of being “cut,”dropped,” “terminated,” or “disenrolled” from the PCAFC weighs heavily on the minds of the veterans, especially those suffering from PTSD.
In the last six weeks, I have received emails from 11 caregivers of veterans expressing supreme dissatisfaction with the recent developments within the PCAFC. These emails came from different parts of the United States, such as Arizona, California, Illinois, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Texas, just to name a few.
One email from a spouse indicated that the termination letter was “sparking suicidal thoughts.” Another email stated her husband felt that the VA was “trying to kill him” with the termination letter. Of course, I took the appropriate action on the issues contained in both of these two emails.
Now, I believe everyone is familiar with the term “being grandfathered in.”
Simply put, if you met the qualifications of a program and the standards were changed or modified, you were maintained in the program and all others had to meet the “new” Veteran Eligibility Requirements.
Now, we are not talking about hundreds of thousand caregivers. We are only focusing on the 6,700 families that are being “disenrolled” from the vital benefits they have been receiving from the Caregivers Program. The VA had the authority to made the “new” qualifications; they should have the authority to “grandfather in” the existing participants.
Another course of action for the VA would be to “put a pause” on the termination of these 6,700 veterans and their caregivers. “Putting a pause on a program” is nothing new. The VA has already “put a pause” on the VA Electronic Health Records (EHR) Program (slated for the VAMC in Columbus) and the Co-pay Debt Collection Program.
This “pause” in implementing the termination program will allow the VA to re-think the overall impact on veterans and their families.
Does the VA make mistakes in making determinations for the PCAFC? One email indicated a functional assessment was deemed “erroneous” by the VA and a new assessment was subsequently conducted on August 30, 2021. Errors do happen and this is why a “pause” or “a grandfathering in of existing participants” should be considered.
Today, I will not address the issue of the “Veteran Eligibility Requirements” used by the VA for the PCAFC or the fact that only 12 percent of the 107,000 applicants were approved for the PCAFC. This means that 94,000 were disapproved. This is a separate more detailed issue.
I am currently working with a member of the Disabled American Veterans (DAV) Chapter #63 (Clermont County), who was one of the 94,000 applicants that were denied participation in the PCAFC in the last 12 months.
John Plahovinsak retired from the United States Army after serving 32 years. He is currently the Chapter Adjutant of Disabled American Veterans (DAV) Chapter #63 (Clermont County). He can be contacted at [email protected].