VA Aid and Attendance for Nursing Home Care in Colorado

VA Aid and Attendance can raise the maximum VA pension for a qualifying wartime veteran with no dependents to $29,093 a year for 2026, and for a surviving spouse with no dependents to $18,697.1 That money can go straight toward a Colorado nursing home bill, a meaningful offset in a state where a semi-private room costs more than the national median.2

In This Guide

• How much a nursing home costs in Colorado
• How Aid and Attendance helps pay for it
• How nursing home costs lower your countable income
• Who qualifies
• The nursing-home pension cap when Medicaid pays
• How Aid and Attendance works with Colorado Medicaid (Health First Colorado)
• How to apply and get free help
• Frequently asked questions

How Much a Nursing Home Costs in Colorado

Per the CareScout 2025 Cost of Care Survey (released March 2026, the most recent state-level data), a semi-private room in a Colorado nursing home costs about $121,910 a year, roughly $10,159 a month. A private room runs about $146,183 a year (roughly $12,182 a month).2 Colorado's nursing home costs exceed the national medians of about $114,975 for a semi-private room and $129,575 for a private room.3

These are industry-survey medians; the Denver and mountain-resort areas generally run higher than rural counties.2

If the family keeps the house while one spouse is in a nursing home, that property tax bill runs alongside the facility's. Colorado exempts qualifying disabled veterans from part of the property tax on their primary residence, and a veteran temporarily in a nursing home keeps the house as that primary residence as long as it sits empty or only a spouse or financial dependents live there.6 Check Colorado's disabled veteran property tax exemption before you budget the year.

How VA Aid and Attendance Helps Pay for a Colorado Nursing Home

VA Aid and Attendance is a qualifying veteran's or survivor's VA pension paid at a higher maximum rate when the person needs help with daily activities, is bedridden, is a patient in a nursing home because of a loss of mental or physical abilities related to a disability, or has severely limited eyesight.5 It rides on the pension rather than standing alone: on the pension route, the higher rate replaces the basic rate as the most the whole pension can pay, rather than arriving as a second payment beside it.7

The VA publishes these rates as annual figures, called Maximum Annual Pension Rates (MAPR). For 2026 (December 1, 2025, through November 30, 2026), the Aid and Attendance maximums are:1

The MAPR is a ceiling, not a payment: the VA pays the difference between countable income and the MAPR for your category, so the actual amount depends on income after allowed deductions.1 VA's regulations turn that into a monthly check by subtracting countable income from the annual MAPR, dividing the remainder by 12, and rounding down to the whole dollar.1 Against a Colorado nursing home running about $121,910 a year for a semi-private room, even the full single-veteran maximum of $29,093 a year would cover less than a quarter of the bill.2,1 Any countable income left after deductions brings the payment below that maximum.1

How Nursing Home Costs Lower Your Countable Income

VA pension, including its Aid and Attendance increase, is a needs-based benefit. To be eligible, a veteran's yearly family income and net worth have to meet limits set by Congress. Because the benefit is keyed to the income the VA counts, large recurring care expenses can help a veteran qualify even when their income appears too high at first glance.1

Here is how it works: only the portion of unreimbursed medical expenses (UMEs) that exceeds 5 percent of the applicable MAPR is deductible. For 2026:1

• The floor is $872 a year for a veteran with no spouse or child.1
• It rises for a veteran with dependents, but it never reflects the Aid and Attendance or housebound increase.1

Example: a single veteran has $22,000 in annual income and pays $121,910 a year for a Colorado nursing home.2 Payments to a nursing home, including the meals and lodging it charges, are medical expenses, so after subtracting the $872 floor, roughly $121,038 in nursing home expenses become deductible, far more than enough to wipe out the income the VA counts.1

Health, medical, hospitalization, and long-term care insurance premiums count as medical expenses too under 38 CFR 3.278, including premiums for Medicare Parts A, B, and D.1

Who Qualifies for VA Aid and Attendance

To receive VA Aid and Attendance, a veteran must meet all of the following:5

1. No dishonorable discharge, and wartime service: the veteran must not have received a dishonorable discharge. VA lists three service paths, and at least one has to fit: service that began before September 8, 1980, with at least 90 days of active duty; enlisted service that began after September 7, 1980, with at least 24 months (with some exceptions) or the full period for which the veteran was called or ordered to active duty; or service that began as an officer after October 16, 1981, where the veteran had not previously served on active duty for at least 24 months. Each path also needs at least one day during wartime.1 The wartime periods VA recognizes include World War II, the Korean conflict, the Vietnam War era, and the Gulf War, which has no end date set yet.5
2. Age or status: at least one of these has to be true. The veteran is at least 65 years old; has a permanent and total disability; is a patient in a nursing home for long-term care because of a disability; or is getting Social Security Disability Insurance or Supplemental Security Income. A permanent-and-total rating is not the only route: the nursing-home and SSDI/SSI branches stand on their own.5
3. Net worth under $163,699 (for 2026): VA's net-worth calculation includes the claimant's and their dependents' assets and annual income, so comparing assets alone against the limit gives the wrong answer.5 The primary home, the car, and basic home items like appliances you would not take with you if you moved are not counted as assets.1,5 The home's exclusion covers its lot up to 2 acres (more only if the extra land is not marketable), and it holds even after the veteran moves into a nursing home, so keeping the house while the veteran is in care does not by itself count against the limit, though any rent it brings in counts as income.1 What does count is counted net of debt: assets are the fair market value of the real and personal property the claimant owns, minus the amount of any mortgages, and VA may subtract unreimbursed medical and educational expenses when it assesses income for VA purposes and net worth. For a married veteran this is a household test rather than an individual one, because net worth includes the spouse's.5
4. Need for aid and attendance: at least one of these: needs another person's help with daily activities (bathing, dressing, feeding), has to stay in bed or spend much of the day in bed because of illness, is a patient in a nursing home because of a loss of mental or physical abilities related to a disability, or has severely limited eyesight.5

The VA also applies a 36-month look-back, counted back from the date it receives the pension claim, on assets transferred for less than fair market value. If a transferred asset would have pushed net worth over the limit, VA assesses a penalty period of up to five years.5 Transfers made before October 18, 2018 are disregarded.1

Surviving spouses of qualifying wartime veterans may be eligible for the Survivors Pension with Aid and Attendance, with a 2026 maximum of $18,697 a year for a surviving spouse with no dependents.1

The $90/Month Nursing-Home Pension Cap

This is one of the most important planning facts for families weighing both VA pension and Medicaid.

When a single veteran with no spouse or child is receiving Medicaid-covered nursing facility care, federal law generally limits VA pension, including the Aid and Attendance amount, to no more than $90 per month. The statute, 38 U.S.C. 5503(d)(2), applies the cap for any period after the month of admission; VA's implementing regulation, 38 CFR 3.551(i), applies it for any period after the month Medicaid payments begin. Those can be different months if Medicaid was approved after admission, so confirm with VA which month it reduced the pension from.4,8 That cap turns on a defined term rather than the everyday sense of a nursing home: for purposes of that subsection, 38 U.S.C. 5503(d)(1)(B) defines "nursing facility" as one described in section 1919 of the Social Security Act "other than a facility that is a State home with respect to which the Secretary makes per diem payments for nursing home care pursuant to section 1741(a) of this title," so if the facility is a State veterans home, have that checked against the statutory definition rather than assume the cap applies.4 The VA says that where it awards the $90 rate, the facility "can't count this monthly payment as income toward your cost of care" and that you "would keep the full $90 for personal expenses."8 The same $90 limit applies to a surviving spouse who has no child, under 38 U.S.C. 5503(d)(5)(A).4

That federal rule caps the pension and keeps the $90 out of the facility's cost-of-care calculation. It does not decide how the retained $90 relates to a state's own Medicaid personal needs allowance, which is a separate deduction each state sets in its post-eligibility rules, and the treatment varies from state to state.8 It does not stack everywhere: Rhode Island's rule, for instance, provides the $90 improved pension instead of that state's regular monthly personal needs allowance, not on top of it.4 Colorado's own rule (10 CCR 2505-10 § 8.100.7.V.3.d) sets the personal needs allowance at $90 a month for a veteran in a long-term care institution who has no spouse or dependent child and receives a non-service-connected VA pension, and at $90 a month for the widow or widower of a veteran with no dependent children. The base allowance for non-veterans is a separate figure, $75 a month as of January 1, 2015 and adjusted every year, so confirm the current amounts with HCPF before planning around them.5

What this means practically: once Health First Colorado covers care for a veteran with no spouse or child in a nursing facility the cap reaches, the VA pension does not continue at the full Aid and Attendance rate.4 Given Colorado's above-average nursing home costs, families should coordinate both applications carefully before the veteran enters a Medicaid-funded facility. An accredited VA representative or elder law attorney can help map out the timing to preserve as much benefit as possible.8

How Aid and Attendance Works with Colorado Medicaid (Health First Colorado)

VA Aid and Attendance and Health First Colorado (Colorado's Medicaid program, administered by the Department of Health Care Policy and Financing, or HCPF) are separate programs that a veteran needing long-term care can hold together, but they interact and have to be coordinated.5 On the VA side, unreimbursed medical expenses above the 5 percent floor reduce the income the VA counts, so paying for nursing home care can help a veteran qualify for the VA benefit.1

How that VA income is then treated for Health First Colorado eligibility and the Medicaid long-term-care cost-share (patient liability) is governed by Medicaid rules, not VA rules. At the eligibility step, Colorado is not one of the eight 209(b) states that SSA lists as using criteria stricter than SSI, so under 42 CFR 435.601 the SSI methodologies govern the Health First Colorado eligibility decision. Under SSI methodology, VA aid and attendance and housebound allowances are not income, so the Aid and Attendance allowance does not count toward the Colorado income limit. Colorado may elect less restrictive methodologies, but such an election can only widen eligibility, never narrow it.5

Eligibility is only the first step. By its own terms, 42 CFR 435.725 covers individuals in medical institutions and intermediate care facilities in SSI states, and it does not on its own settle post-eligibility treatment for home- and community-based waiver services. Where that section governs, income that was disregarded in determining eligibility must 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 and including "[a]mounts for incurred expenses for medical or remedial care that are not subject to payment by a third party." That deduction is not open-ended: the category covering care recognized under state law but not covered by the state plan is "subject to reasonable limits the agency may establish."8 Under the federal rule alone, then, an Aid and Attendance amount ignored at eligibility does not automatically stay out of the post-eligibility calculation, though a state's own post-eligibility rules can exempt it.8 Colorado's rule does. Under 10 CCR 2505-10 § 8.100.5.K, the Aid and Attendance and Unusual Medical Expense portion of the pension, as determined by the VA, is not counted as income for eligibility and is not used as patient payment to the facility for a veteran or surviving spouse in a medical facility other than a State Veterans Home, or in a State Veterans Home with dependents. The one exception is a veteran or surviving spouse in a State Veterans Home with no dependents: for that resident, the rule says the Aid and Attendance and Unusual Medical Expense portion is used as patient payment to the facility.5 Because the exact treatment is fact-specific, a Colorado family should confirm the interaction with a County Veterans Service Officer, Health First Colorado/HCPF, or an accredited benefits counselor, and should not assume either that the two stack at full value or that one cancels the other.5

How to Apply for VA Aid and Attendance for a Nursing Home in Colorado

The steps below are the pension route: VA's condition for this benefit is "You may be eligible for this benefit if you get a VA pension." Aid and Attendance is not always a pension matter, though. VA Form 21-2680 also covers Aid and Attendance that will be added to monthly compensation, so a veteran who receives VA disability compensation rather than pension should not be sent to the pension application.7

To apply through the pension route, you will need:7

• VA Form 21-0966 (Intent to File), first, if you are still gathering information. VA says submitting an intent to file "can secure the earliest possible effective date for any retroactive payments you may be eligible to receive."
• VA Form 21-2680 (Examination for Housebound Status or Permanent Need for Regular Aid and Attendance), with the examination information section filled out by a medical examiner to document the need for assistance. This is the form used for Aid and Attendance that will be added to monthly compensation or pension benefits.
• VA Form 21P-527EZ (Application for Veterans Pension), for a wartime veteran pursuing the pension route who is not already receiving VA pension. This is the wartime, means-tested pension application.
• VA Form 21-0779 (Request for Nursing Home Information in Connection with Claim for Aid and Attendance), for a veteran who is already a nursing home patient. VA says a nursing home official uses this form to verify that the veteran is a patient in a qualifying facility, so ask the facility's staff to complete it.
• VA Form 21P-8416 (Medical Expense Report), to report the nursing home bills and other medical expenses you paid and were not, and do not expect to be, reimbursed for.

You can apply online at VA.gov, by mail to the VA Pension Intake Center, or in person at a VA regional office. An accredited attorney, accredited claims agent, or accredited Veterans Service Organization representative can also help you file the claim. On how long a decision takes, VA's answer is "It depends"; it processes claims in the order it receives them, unless a claim requires priority processing.7

Free help in Colorado: Every Colorado county has a County 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.9 The Colorado Division of Veterans Affairs strongly recommends contacting yours before you submit an application to the VA; visit vets.colorado.gov to find your nearest office.9

Never pay anyone to file an initial VA claim. Federal law bars accredited attorneys and claims agents from charging for their work before VA's initial decision, and VA-recognized Veterans Service Organization representatives always help with benefit claims free of charge.10

Compare Care Settings in Colorado

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

• How Aid and Attendance Pays for Assisted Living in Colorado
• How Aid and Attendance Pays for In-Home Care in Colorado
• How Aid and Attendance Pays for Memory Care in Colorado

Learn More

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.