Helping Veterans and Their Families on Medicaid

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I am the Program Manager of a
Veteran’s Program in Washington State that is providing a valuable service
to Medicaid veterans and their families.

In addition to saving State
Medicaid dollars, it places Medicaid veterans and their families with the
veteran related benefits for which they are entitled.

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Our program was
selected as a “Best Practice” by the NGA (National Governor’s Association)
as well as earning the State of Washington’s 2004 Governor’s Award for
Customer Service.

I feel that by garnering visibility, perhaps many more veterans and family
members will become familiarized with our efforts and utilize us as a
resource. I’m attaching some information to provide you with an overview of
our program.

One important benefit our program provides is often overlooked by clients
and/or their representatives.

As you may be aware, families/estates of
veterans, as well as all Medicaid recipients receiving long term care
services, are responsible to repay the state for all of the Medicaid
services associated with Long Term Care. This is usually facilitated through the
state’s Estate Recovery process.

While our program saves Medicaid dollars
and places Medicaid veterans with the benefits they are eligible for, we are
also reducing the debt that families and estates of Medicaid veterans would
otherwise have to repay.

In many cases, the veteran clients and their
families are not aware that they are eligible for VA related benefits.
Additionally, there are even more that overlook the requirement to repay the
state for LTC related Medicaid services.

In addition to the veterans, our program targets the spouses and dependents
that are also eligible for benefits. In the past year (FY 2005), our program
saved $4.3 million dollars.

With access to the VA and Department of Defense
data for all of our Medicaid clients through our membership with PARIS
(Public Assistance Reporting Information System), we have the ability to
continuously identify the veterans, spouses and dependents that are eligible
for VA related medical benefits. We recently found that many of the clients
we have targeted were not only eligible for medical benefits, they were also
eligible to receive increased monthly cash benefits.

The VA authorizes
increased Aid and Attendance benefits as well as Improved Pensions for those
that require a third party to care for them (in many cases that would be the
nursing or assisted living facilities).

By providing visibility to this program, you will assist our outreach
efforts that we’re confident will save skyrocketing Medicaid dollars, as
well as the opportunity to facilitate access to VA related benefits for the
many veterans, spouses and dependents who are entitled to them. Feel free to
call or e-mail any questions or comments that you may have.

Here is a link to our Web page:

https://www.aasa.dshs.wa.gov/topics/PARIS/

”’Bill Allman is the Program Manager for the Veteran’s/PARIS Project, DSHS Aging and Disability Services Administration in Vancouver and Olympia. Reach him via email at”’ mailto:allmawa@dshs.wa.gov

”’HawaiiReporter.com reports the real news, and prints all editorials submitted, even if they do not represent the viewpoint of the editors, as long as they are written clearly. Send editorials to”’ mailto:Malia@HawaiiReporter.com

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