VA Home Health Care for Veterans: 4 Programs and Costs (2026)

If your dad can't make his VA clinic visits anymore, or can't bathe safely on his own, the VA itself may be able to send help to the house. In practice, VA home health care for veterans reaches the home through four VA health care programs: a VA primary care team at home, skilled nursing and therapy, a home health aide, and respite care at home. Each of the four VA home care programs has its own eligibility gate, and every one starts with enrollment in VA health care. Here's what each one sends, who qualifies, and what it may cost.

In This Guide

• Does the VA Provide Home Health Care?
• VA Home Health Care Programs at a Glance
• Home Based Primary Care: A VA Team That Comes to You
• Skilled Home Health Care: Nursing and Therapy at Home
• Homemaker and Home Health Aide: Help With Daily Living
• Respite Care at Home: A Break for the Family Caregiver
• What Does VA Home Health Care Cost?
• How Much Home Care Can the VA Provide?
• How to Get VA Home Health Care Started
• VA Home Care vs. Aid and Attendance
• Frequently Asked Questions
• Learn More

Does the VA Provide Home Health Care?

Yes. Federal law lets the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs furnish home health services as part of a veteran's medical care, and 38 U.S.C. 1717 says VA "may furnish home health services to a veteran in any setting in which the veteran is residing."1

In practice, VA home health care reaches the house through four VA health care programs:

1. Home Based Primary Care, a VA team that provides primary care at home.
2. Skilled Home Health Care, nursing and therapy from a VA-contracted agency.
3. Homemaker and Home Health Aide care, hands-on help with bathing, dressing and other daily activities.
4. Respite care at home, which gives the family caregiver a break.

The first gate is the same for all four. Under 38 CFR 17.36, except as the regulation otherwise provides, a veteran must be enrolled in VA health care as a condition of receiving VA's medical benefits package.5 If your veteran isn't enrolled yet, that's step one, and the VA health care enrollment and priority groups guide walks through it.

VA Home Health Care Programs at a Glance

The four VA home care programs look alike from the outside, but each one sends a different kind of help and has its own eligibility gate. Here's how they line up.

VA's program pages note that services may vary by location, so availability near you is a question for your VA social worker, not something the table can promise.2,3

Home Based Primary Care: A VA Team That Comes to You

VA Home Based Primary Care (HBPC) is VA health care delivered in the veteran's own home, for veterans who need team-based support at home for ongoing diseases and illnesses that affect their health and daily activities.1

With Home Based Primary Care, VA's own team comes to you. According to VA, the HBPC team can include:

• primary care visits at home by a physician, nurse practitioner, or physician's assistant
• care management through a nurse practitioner, physician's assistant, or nurse
• social work
• rehabilitation
• psychology
• nutrition
• pharmacy

Does the veteran have to be homebound? No. VA says veterans in Home Based Primary Care "usually have difficulty making and keeping clinic visits because of the severity of their illness and are often homebound, but that is not required." VA also says HBPC is for veterans who are isolated or whose caregiver is experiencing burden.1 That second part matters if you're the daughter doing all the driving and all the worrying: VA names caregiver burden right in the program's description.

Who qualifies for Home Based Primary Care? Because HBPC is part of the VHA Standard Medical Benefits Package, VA says all enrolled veterans are eligible for Home Based Primary Care if they meet the clinical need for the service and it is available.1 So VA's stated gate for Home Based Primary Care is enrollment, clinical need and availability; the next two programs add VA community care eligibility on top.

What does Home Based Primary Care cost? It isn't automatically free.1 The cost section below covers the Home Based Primary Care copay alongside the other programs.

Skilled Home Health Care: Nursing and Therapy at Home

VA Skilled Home Health Care (SHHC) is for veterans who need short-term care while moving from a hospital or nursing home back home, and it can also provide continuing care to veterans with ongoing needs.2 Think of it as the program for the weeks after a hospital stay, when the care needed at home is skilled care.

VA says Skilled Home Health Care is for veterans who need skilled services such as skilled nursing, case management, physical therapy, occupational therapy, speech therapy, wound care, or IV antibiotics. Depending on need, an eligible veteran may also get patient education about managing medicines or illness, a home safety evaluation, and social work support.2

The people who show up work for an outside agency. VA says Skilled Home Health Care is delivered by a community-based home health agency that has a contract with VA.2

Who qualifies for Skilled Home Health Care? VA says all enrolled veterans are eligible for Skilled Home Health Care if they are eligible for community care and meet the clinical criteria for the service.2 Ask your VA social worker or primary care team whether your veteran is eligible for VA community care.

Homemaker and Home Health Aide: Help With Daily Living

This is the program most families are picturing when they search "does the VA provide home health aides." A VA Homemaker and Home Health Aide is a trained person who can come to a veteran's home and help the veteran take care of themselves and their daily activities.3

VA lists these examples of daily activities a VA homemaker or home health aide may help with:

• eating
• getting dressed
• personal grooming
• bathing
• using the bathroom
• moving from one place to another
• grocery shopping

A few details that matter when you're planning around it, all from VA's Homemaker and Home Health Aide page:3

• VA homemakers and home health aides are not nurses, but a registered nurse supervises them and helps assess the veteran's daily living needs.
• The aides work for an organization that has a contract with VA.
• VA says Homemaker and Home Health Aide services can serve veterans of any age, so this isn't only an elder program.
• VA's Homemaker and Home Health Aide program is also for veterans who are isolated or whose caregiver is experiencing burden.
• A veteran can keep receiving an aide's services for as long as they need extra help with daily activities.

Who qualifies for Homemaker and Home Health Aide care? VA says all enrolled veterans are eligible for Homemaker and Home Health Aide care if they are eligible for community care, meet the clinical criteria for the service, and it is available.3

What does Homemaker and Home Health Aide care cost? A copay may be charged.3 The cost section below explains what it's based on.

Respite Care at Home: A Break for the Family Caregiver

If you're the one providing most of the care, this section is about you. Under 38 U.S.C. 1720B, VA may furnish respite care services to a veteran who is enrolled in VA health care, and may use contract arrangements to do it.4

The law defines VA respite care as care that is of limited duration, furnished on an intermittent basis to a veteran who has a chronic illness and lives primarily at home, for the purpose of helping the veteran keep living primarily at home. VA's copay regulation, 38 CFR 17.111, adds that "Respite providers temporarily replace the caregivers to provide services ranging from supervision to skilled care needs."4

Respite doesn't have to mean a facility stay. VA says Homemaker or Home Health Aide services can be used to get respite care at home for veterans and their family caregiver.3 In VA's copay rules, a "noninstitutional" service is one that does not include an overnight stay, so respite at home without an overnight stay falls on the non-institutional side.4

For more on respite beyond what VA offers, see Brevy's guide to respite care for family caregivers.

What Does VA Home Health Care Cost?

Short answer: VA home care can carry a copay, and what VA publishes about the cost differs by program. Here it is program by program.

Home Based Primary Care. VA says a copay for Home Based Primary Care may be charged based on the veteran's service-connected disability status and financial information, and the veteran may have a basic copay each time a VA staff team member comes to the home for a medical visit, the same as a visit to a VA clinic.1

Skilled Home Health Care. For Skilled Home Health Care, and for Home Based Primary Care too, VA directs veterans to contact their VA social worker or case manager to complete VA Form 10-10EC, the Application for Extended Care Benefits, to learn the amount of the copay.2,1

Homemaker and Home Health Aide care. VA says a copay for Homemaker and Home Health Aide services may be charged based on the veteran's service-connected disability status.3

Non-institutional respite care. Here the regulation gives real numbers. Under 38 CFR 17.111, unless exempt, a veteran owes no copayment for the first 21 days of VA extended care services in any 12-month period, counted from the date VA first provided extended care services. After the first 21 days, VA's copay for non-institutional respite care is $15 a day (institutional respite care is $97 a day), owed only "to the extent the veteran has available resources," and VA counts each day non-institutional respite care is provided.4

"Available resources" is a calculation, not your bank balance. Under 38 CFR 17.111, for a veteran receiving VA extended care services for 180 days or less, available resources are the income of the veteran and spouse minus allowances and expenses. For a veteran receiving only noninstitutional extended care, the regulation doesn't count the veteran's primary residence or vehicle as fixed assets.4

Adult Day Health Care. If your veteran goes out to a VA Adult Day Health Care program instead of, or alongside, care at home, 38 CFR 17.111 sets that copay at $15 a day too, after the same first-21-days window and to the extent of available resources, and VA directs veterans to complete Form 10-10EC to learn the amount.6 Our guide to VA adult day care covers it in detail.

Who is exempt from VA extended care copays. 38 CFR 17.111(f) lists veterans and care not subject to VA's extended care copayments, including respite and adult day health care. The list is longer than this, but it includes:4

• a veteran with a compensable service-connected disability
• a veteran whose annual income is below the amount in effect under 38 U.S.C. 1521(b)
• care for a veteran's noncompensable zero percent service-connected disability
• a veteran VA determines to be catastrophically disabled, for adult day health care, non-institutional respite care, and non-institutional geriatric care
• a veteran awarded the Medal of Honor
• a veteran who meets the definition of Indian or urban Indian, for noninstitutional extended care

The 38 CFR 17.111 exemption from VA extended care copays covers any compensable service-connected rating, not only 70 percent or higher. The 70 percent figure you may have heard is a different rule: under 38 U.S.C. 1710A, it's the rating at which VA must provide nursing home care a veteran needs.7

A veteran who isn't exempt must submit VA Form 10-10EC when first requesting an episode of VA extended care services.4 Filling it out is also how you find out what you'll actually owe, so do it early rather than guessing.

How Much Home Care Can the VA Provide?

For VA Homemaker and Home Health Aide care, VA ties the amount to the veteran's assessed needs: "an aide may be able to come to your house several times a week or just once in a while."3 A VA social worker is the person who can tell you what specific help your veteran may be able to get.

Federal law also sets a yearly spending ceiling, and it's narrower than it sounds. In plain terms, what VA spends in a year on its noninstitutional alternative-to-nursing-home program for one veteran generally can't exceed what VA would have spent that year on nursing home care for that veteran, with room above that cap for veterans with ALS or a spinal cord injury.3

That ceiling comes from 38 U.S.C. 1720C, which lets VA furnish medical, rehabilitative, and health-related services in noninstitutional settings for veterans who are eligible for, and need, nursing home care, with priority for veterans who need that care mainly for a service-connected disability or who have a service-connected disability rated at 50 percent or more. Under 38 U.S.C. 1720C(d), for a veteran with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), a spinal cord injury, or a condition VA determines is similar, the program's annual cost may exceed 100 percent of what VA would have spent on that veteran's nursing home care if VA determines the higher cost is in the veteran's best interest. The 1720C program's contracting authority also depends each year on appropriations being available.3

So the ceiling applies to the 1720C noninstitutional alternative-to-nursing-home program, and the 1720C statute does not name the Homemaker and Home Health Aide program. VA's Homemaker and Home Health Aide page says aide services "can be used as a part of an alternative to nursing home care."3 How any of this applies to your veteran's own plan is a question for your VA social worker.

How to Get VA Home Health Care Started

1. Enroll in VA health care if your veteran isn't already. Veterans apply with VA Form 10-10EZ online at VA.gov, by phone at 877-222-8387, by mail, in person at a VA medical center or clinic, or with help from an accredited representative or Veterans Service Organization.5
2. Talk to the VA primary care team or a VA social worker. VA says your VA physician or social worker can tell you whether a Home Based Primary Care program is available in your area, and your VA social worker can help arrange Homemaker and Home Health Aide services.1,3
3. Ask about Skilled Home Health agencies near you. If Skilled Home Health Care seems right, VA says to talk with your social worker about home health agencies in your area.2
4. Complete VA Form 10-10EC. VA says to contact your VA social worker or case manager to complete the Application for Extended Care Benefits.1 The cost section above covers what it tells you.
5. Ask about local availability directly. Ask plainly which of the four programs your VA medical center can actually provide right now.

It helps to bring a list of the specific things your veteran can't do safely anymore (bathing, stairs, managing medications). The eligibility gates turn on clinical need, and concrete examples help the team assess it.

VA Home Care vs. Aid and Attendance

This article is about care that VA health care sends into the home. VA Aid and Attendance is a different VA benefit. If you're weighing Aid and Attendance as a way to pay for care you arrange yourself, read Brevy's guide to how VA Aid and Attendance can help pay for in-home care.

If you're the family caregiver and wondering whether you can be paid for the work, see how to get paid as a family caregiver. And if your veteran also has Medicare, the Medicare home health benefit is separate, and our guide to Medicare home health eligibility covers its rules.

Learn More

Find personalized help arranging VA home health care for your veteran at brevy.com.

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.