VA Aid and Attendance pays a wartime veteran up to $2,424 a month toward in-home care in Colorado, cash the veteran controls and can spend on an agency aide or a family caregiver. Because it is paid to the beneficiary as part of the monthly pension, it commonly goes toward a home health aide or a homemaker. For a veteran or surviving spouse who needs help with daily activities, that monthly benefit can be what keeps them at home.

This guide explains what in-home care costs in Colorado, how much Aid and Attendance pays, who qualifies, and how the benefit works alongside Health First Colorado, the state's Medicaid program.

In This Guide

How Much In-Home Care Costs in Colorado

In-home care in Colorado runs above the national average. According to the CareScout 2025 Cost of Care Survey (released March 2026), a non-medical caregiver in Colorado costs about $94,952 per year (roughly $7,913 per month), based on a 44-hour-per-week schedule. The 2025 survey combines home health aide and homemaker help into a single non-medical caregiver category, and Colorado's figure runs above the national median of about $6,673 a month.

Costs are higher in the Denver and mountain-resort areas than in rural counties, and they climb as care needs grow. This is exactly the kind of expense Aid and Attendance is designed to offset.

How Aid and Attendance Helps Pay for In-Home Care in Colorado

Aid and Attendance is an increased monthly VA pension for wartime veterans and surviving spouses who need help with daily activities. It is paid as cash directly to the veteran, who decides how to use it. Because it is paid to the beneficiary as part of the monthly pension, families commonly put it toward a home health aide, a homemaker, or a family caregiver.

Category Monthly Amount
Veteran alone Up to $2,424
Veteran with spouse Up to $2,874
Surviving spouse Up to $1,558

The VA publishes these as maximum annual pension rates: $29,093 for a veteran alone, $34,488 with one dependent, and $18,697 for a surviving spouse. The monthly payment is the yearly amount divided by 12. Read those as ceilings rather than promises: the MAPR is the maximum amount of pension payable, and VA bases the payment on the difference between the claimant's income for VA purposes and that limit, so a household with countable income receives less than the table shows. At up to $2,424 a month for a veteran, the benefit covers a meaningful share of Colorado's roughly $7,913 monthly cost for a non-medical caregiver, and at up to $2,874 for a veteran with a spouse it covers even more., Keep in mind the VA pays the veteran; the veteran arranges and pays for the care.

How In-Home Care Costs Lower Your Countable Income

VA pension, including the Aid and Attendance increase, is a needs-based benefit: to be eligible, your yearly family income and net worth have to fall within limits set by Congress. Continuing, out-of-pocket care costs, such as paying a home health aide, count as unreimbursed medical expenses (UMEs) that reduce the income the VA counts, which is why many veterans who look "too rich" on paper still qualify once their care bills are subtracted.

Only the portion of those expenses above 5% of your applicable maximum annual pension rate (MAPR) is deductible. As the VA puts it, you may deduct only the amount that's above 5% of your MAPR amount, which is $872 for a veteran with no spouse or child. That floor rises if you have dependents, but it never reflects the aid and attendance or housebound increase. So if a veteran pays about $94,952 a year for in-home care in Colorado, nearly all of it counts against income once the first roughly $872 is set aside.

Payments to an in-home attendant for help with daily and instrumental activities are medical expenses as long as the attendant provides health care or custodial care, and the payments must be commensurate with the number of hours the provider attends to the person. The attendant must be a health care provider unless the veteran needs aid and attendance or is housebound, or a physician, physician assistant, certified nurse practitioner, or clinical nurse specialist states in writing that, due to a physical, mental, developmental, or cognitive disorder, the individual requires the health care or custodial care that the in-home attendant provides.

Who Qualifies

To qualify for Aid and Attendance, a veteran generally must:

  • Meet the wartime service test, which turns on when service began. The VA lists three paths: a veteran who started active duty before September 8, 1980 needs at least 90 days of active duty with at least 1 day during a wartime period; a veteran who started active duty as an enlisted person after September 7, 1980 needs at least 24 months (with some exceptions), or the full period for which they were called or ordered to active duty, again with at least 1 day during wartime; and a veteran who started active duty as an officer after October 16, 1981 and had not previously served on active duty for at least 24 months.
  • Not have received a dishonorable discharge, and meet at least one of four conditions: be at least 65 years old; have a permanent and total disability; be a patient in a nursing home for long-term care because of a disability; or be getting Social Security Disability Insurance or Supplemental Security Income. Any one of the four satisfies the test on its own: a wartime veteran under 65 who receives SSI qualifies without any adjudicated disability rating.
  • Meet one of the aid and attendance criteria: needing another person's help on a regular basis with activities such as dressing and undressing, keeping clean and presentable, feeding oneself, or attending to the wants of nature, or needing care on a regular basis to stay safe from the hazards of daily life; or being bedridden; or being a patient in a nursing home because of a loss of mental or physical abilities related to a disability; or having eyesight of 5/200 or less in both eyes, or a visual field contracted to 5 degrees or less
  • Have a net worth below $163,699, a calculation that includes the claimant's and dependents' assets and income for VA purposes and excludes the primary residence, the car, and basic home items

The VA enforces a 3-year look-back on assets transferred for less than fair market value before filing. A surviving spouse can qualify under the Survivors Pension using the same net worth limit.

Using Aid and Attendance to Pay a Family Caregiver for In-Home Care in Colorado

Many families want to keep care in the family, and there are two ways VA benefits make that possible. First, because Aid and Attendance is cash paid to the veteran, the veteran can simply use it to pay a relative who provides care.

Second, the Veteran-Directed Care (VDC) program gives an enrolled veteran a flexible budget, managed by the veteran or their representative, to hire and supervise their own workers so they can keep living at home or in their community. Veterans may hire family, friends, and/or neighbors, including a spouse. A person-centered options counselor at an Aging and Disability Network Agency, such as an Area Agency on Aging, helps plan the services, and a financial management services provider helps the veteran handle the employer responsibilities that come with being the hiring party. Before you count on a particular arrangement, ask your County Veterans Service Officer or the VA social worker handling the referral to confirm it for your situation. To ask about VDC, contact your local VA medical center's social work or geriatrics department; you can find the nearest one at va.gov/find-locations.

How Aid and Attendance Works with Colorado Medicaid

A Colorado senior can potentially receive both VA pension with Aid and Attendance and Health First Colorado (the state's Medicaid program, administered by the Department of Health Care Policy & Financing) long-term care, but the two programs interact and must be coordinated. Under the general federal rule, VA pension income counts as income for pension purposes, and the VA reduces countable income by qualifying unreimbursed medical expenses, so paying for care can lower the income the VA counts.

How that VA income is treated for Medicaid eligibility and the Medicaid cost-share is governed by Medicaid rules rather than VA rules. Eligibility is only the first step. For someone in a medical institution or an intermediate care facility, the federal rule requires that income disregarded in determining eligibility be considered in the post-eligibility process that reduces Medicaid's payment to the institution, and the agency must deduct specified amounts in a specified order, beginning with a personal needs allowance. That rule applies by its own terms to medical institutions and intermediate care facilities; it does not set the post-eligibility rules for home- and community-based waiver services. Whether a particular Aid and Attendance amount ends up in Colorado's patient-liability calculation, and how it is treated alongside the personal needs allowance, is set by Colorado's own post-eligibility policy, which the federal sources do not state. Because the exact treatment is fact-specific, confirm the interaction with a County Veterans Service Officer, Health First Colorado, or an accredited benefits counselor, and do not assume either that the two stack at full value or that one cancels the other.

How to Apply and Get Free Help

To apply for Aid and Attendance, submit VA Form 21-2680 (Examination for Housebound Status or Permanent Need for Regular Aid and Attendance), whose examination section a medical examiner fills out to document the need for help. That form covers Aid and Attendance that will be added to your monthly compensation or pension benefits, so it is not limited to pension recipients. The application steps that follow are the pension route: the VA's condition is that you may be eligible for this benefit if you get a VA pension. A wartime veteran pursuing that route who is not already receiving a VA pension also files VA Form 21P-527EZ (Application for Veterans Pension), the wartime, means-tested pension application. You can file online at VA.gov, by mail to the VA Pension Intake Center, in person at a VA regional office, or through an accredited representative. Asked how long a decision takes, the VA answers "It depends"; it works claims in the order it receives them, unless a claim requires priority processing.

Don't do this alone. Every Colorado county has a Veterans Service Office that offers free assistance, and its service officers specialize in helping veterans and their family members with claims, applications, and appeals to the VA. The Colorado Division of Veterans Affairs strongly recommends that anyone thinking about submitting an application to the VA contact their County Veterans Service Office first.

If the VA Denies Your Claim

If the VA denies your Aid and Attendance claim or approves it for less than you expected, you have three decision review options. You can file a Supplemental Claim with new and relevant evidence the VA didn't have before, request a Higher-Level Review by a higher-level reviewer (no new evidence), or take a Board Appeal to the Board of Veterans' Appeals for review by a Veterans Law Judge. For most VA benefits, a Higher-Level Review or a Board Appeal has to be elected within one year of the date the VA issued notice of the decision, and because certain VA benefits carry time limits of less than a year, check the deadline your own decision letter gives; a Supplemental Claim can be filed at any time after that notice. But waiting has a price: a Supplemental Claim the VA receives more than one year after the date on the decision notice takes an effective date no earlier than the date the VA receives it, and continuous pursuit of the claim is broken unless the VA grants an extension of the one-year period for good cause. Filing after the one-year mark can cost back pay all the way to the original claim date, so file inside the year even though the door stays open. A County Veterans Service Officer can prepare and file the review for free, the same as with the original claim. Compare the three lanes at va.gov/decision-reviews.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can I use Aid and Attendance to pay for a home health aide in Colorado?

Yes. Aid and Attendance is paid as cash to the veteran, who can use it for a home health aide, a homemaker, or other in-home care. With in-home care in Colorado running about $7,913 a month, the benefit of up to $2,424 (or up to $2,874 with a spouse) covers a meaningful share of the cost.

Does the VA provide the in-home care directly?

No. The VA pays the veteran a monthly cash benefit; the veteran arranges and pays for the care. That's what makes the benefit flexible enough to cover an agency aide or a family caregiver.

Can my income be too high to qualify if I'm paying for care?

Often not. Out-of-pocket in-home care counts as an unreimbursed medical expense that lowers the income the VA counts, but only the portion above $872 a year for a veteran with no spouse or child (more with dependents) is deductible. Large care bills can reduce countable income enough to qualify.

Can I get both Aid and Attendance and Colorado Medicaid?

Yes, the two are separate programs and can be received together, though they must be coordinated. Because the treatment is fact-specific, confirm with a County Veterans Service Officer, Health First Colorado, or an accredited benefits counselor.

Compare Care Settings in Colorado

Aid and Attendance can help pay for any care setting. See how it works for the others:

Learn More

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The information on Brevy.com is for educational purposes only and is not a substitute for professional legal, financial, or medical advice. Rules vary by state and program and change frequently. Always verify with the relevant agency or a qualified professional. Brevy is not a law firm, financial advisor, or healthcare provider.

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