VA Aid and Attendance can put thousands of dollars a month toward memory care in Illinois, and many veteran families never realize the money is there. It's a monthly cash benefit, paid directly to the veteran or surviving spouse, that you can spend on a memory care community for a loved one living with Alzheimer's or another dementia. For a family facing a secured-unit bill that runs higher than standard assisted living, that benefit often makes the difference between affording care and not.

This guide walks through what memory care costs in Illinois, what Aid and Attendance pays in 2026, why veterans with dementia so often qualify, how unreimbursed medical expenses can actually help you qualify, how the benefit works alongside Illinois Medicaid, and how to apply with free help.

In This Guide

How Much Memory Care Costs in Illinois

Standard assisted living in Illinois runs about $6,219 a month, according to the CareScout 2025 Cost of Care Survey (released March 2026). Memory care generally costs more than standard assisted living because of the secured environment, higher staffing ratios, and dementia-specific programming. That premium is exactly the gap Aid and Attendance is designed to help close.

Memory care is more expensive than standard assisted living almost everywhere, because a secured dementia unit means more staff, more training, and a physical environment built to keep residents safe. That higher bill is the reason families look hard for every benefit they can layer on, and Aid and Attendance is one of the most overlooked.

How Aid and Attendance Helps Pay for Memory Care in Illinois

Aid and Attendance is an increased rate of the VA pension for veterans, and surviving spouses, who need help with daily activities. It arrives as cash every month, paid to the veteran or surviving spouse rather than to a facility, so you can apply it straight to a memory care bill.

The VA publishes these as Maximum Annual Pension Rates, effective December 1, 2025 through November 30, 2026, and a monthly payment is the yearly award divided by 12. The figures below are the maximum pension with Aid and Attendance, not a separate Aid and Attendance payment on top of them:

Category Maximum per year About, per month
Veteran, no dependents $29,093 $2,424
Veteran with one dependent $34,488 $2,874
Surviving spouse $18,697 $1,558

The benefit doesn't have to cover the whole memory care bill to be worth claiming, and for many Illinois families it covers a meaningful share of the monthly cost. It stacks with Social Security, a private pension, or family contributions, though income the VA counts is the same income that reduces the award, so run the arithmetic on your own household rather than assuming the maximum.

One thing to be clear about: Aid and Attendance is paid as part of the monthly VA pension for qualified veterans and survivors, so it reaches the veteran or surviving spouse rather than the community. The family receives the money and applies it toward care.

Wondering how much Aid and Attendance could cover for your family's situation? Chat with Brevy for a quick estimate.

Why Illinois Veterans in Memory Care Often Qualify for Aid and Attendance

The Aid and Attendance clinical test is built around the very limitations dementia tends to cause, which is why so many veterans with Alzheimer's or a related dementia meet it.

To qualify on care need, a veteran must show one of several things: needing another person's regular help with daily activities such as bathing, dressing, or feeding yourself; a physical or mental incapacity that requires care or assistance on a regular basis to protect you from the hazards or dangers of your daily environment; being bedridden; being a patient in a nursing home because of a loss of mental or physical abilities related to a disability; or eyesight of 5/200 or less in both eyes, or a visual field contracted to 5 degrees or less. As dementia progresses, a person commonly needs hands-on help with bathing and dressing and can no longer be left alone safely, which is exactly what a secured memory care unit exists to address.

In other words, the same realities that lead a family to choose memory care, the wandering, the inability to manage medications, the around-the-clock supervision, are the realities the VA looks for. A medical examiner's exam documenting that need is what carries the claim.

How Memory Care Costs Lower Your Countable Income

This is the part most families miss, and it's where memory care and Aid and Attendance fit together in a way that surprises people.

The VA pension is needs-based: to be eligible, your yearly family income and net worth have to meet limits set by Congress. Because eligibility is keyed to income for VA purposes, lowering the income the VA counts can bring you inside those limits, and you lower it by deducting unreimbursed medical expenses.

Which charges the VA will accept as medical expenses is set out in its rules at 38 CFR 3.278, and those rules cover more than doctor visits: health, medical, hospitalization, and long-term care insurance premiums all count, as do premiums for Medicare Parts A, B, and D. Before you assume a memory care community's charges do or don't count, have an accredited Veteran Service Officer read the invoices with you, because how a community bills its care can change the answer.

There's one rule to know: only the portion of those expenses above 5% of the applicable maximum annual pension rate is deductible, and that floor is figured on the rate excluding the aid-and-attendance or housebound increase. The VA's own example puts the floor at $872 a year for a veteran with no spouse or child, and it rises for a veteran with dependents. The practical upshot is powerful: a veteran whose income looks too high to qualify can often qualify once a year's worth of deductible medical expenses comes off the income the VA counts.

Who Qualifies

To be eligible for Aid and Attendance, the veteran must:

  • Have qualifying wartime service. How much service is required depends on when the veteran started active duty. A veteran who started active duty before September 8, 1980 needs at least 90 days of active duty with at least one day during a wartime period (WWII, Korea, Vietnam, or the Gulf War). A veteran who started active duty as an enlisted person after September 7, 1980 generally needs at least 24 months, or the full period for which they were called or ordered to active duty, again with at least one day during wartime. A veteran who was an officer and started active duty after October 16, 1981 qualifies on service only if they hadn't previously served on active duty for at least 24 months.
  • Have no dishonorable discharge, and meet at least one of these four: 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 this test on its own, so a wartime veteran under 65 who receives SSI qualifies here without any adjudicated disability rating.
  • Need aid and attendance: needing another person's regular help with daily activities such as bathing, dressing, or feeding yourself, needing care or assistance on a regular basis to protect you from everyday hazards, being bedridden, 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, a bar dementia commonly meets.
  • Have a net worth under $163,699 for 2026. The net worth calculation includes the claimant's and dependents' assets and income for VA purposes, and assets exclude the primary residence, the car, and basic home items like appliances you wouldn't take with you if you moved.

The VA also applies a 3-year look-back on assets transferred for less than fair market value before you file, with a penalty period that can run up to five years, so don't give away or move assets to qualify without getting advice first.

How Aid and Attendance Works with Illinois Medicaid

Aid and Attendance and Medicaid can work together, and for a family paying for memory care that combination matters.

In Illinois, Medicaid is administered by the Department of Healthcare and Family Services (HFS). For nursing-home residents it uses a patient-liability model: once a resident qualifies, essentially all of their monthly income must go toward the cost of care, except for a personal needs allowance (set at $60 a month for skilled nursing facility residents), Medicare premiums, and any protected allowance for a community spouse. As a general federal rule, VA pension income is generally counted as income for Medicaid, but the portion of a VA pension that consists of Aid and Attendance paid for unreimbursed medical expenses may be treated differently and is often excluded from the income counted toward the Medicaid income limit. Once a resident is eligible and living in a medical institution or intermediate care facility, though, income that was disregarded at eligibility must be counted in the share-of-cost calculation, so the Aid and Attendance amount does count toward the patient liability the resident owes the facility. Incurred medical expenses are not the only deduction, and they are not the first one. Under 42 CFR 435.725(c) the agency must deduct five amounts from the resident's total income, in this order: (1) a personal needs allowance, reasonable in amount for clothing and other personal needs while in the institution, which Illinois sets at $60 a month for skilled nursing facility residents; (2) for a resident with only a spouse at home, an additional amount for the maintenance needs of that spouse; (3) for a resident with a family at home, an additional amount for the maintenance needs of that family; (4) amounts for incurred expenses for medical or remedial care not subject to payment by a third party, which the regulation says includes Medicare and other health insurance premiums, deductibles, or coinsurance; and (5) the full amount of any SSI and state supplement the resident continues to receive. Only what remains after all five reaches the facility, and each one is a deduction the agency is required to make rather than an allowance a family has to apply for. The spouse and family amounts are measured against state standards rather than a single federal figure, so ask HFS what they would be. That section covers people in medical institutions and intermediate care facilities. It does not settle what someone receiving home and community-based waiver services owes toward their care, so confirm that separately with HFS.

Because the interaction between VA pension and Illinois Medicaid is complex and fact-specific, work with a Veterans Service Officer or an elder law attorney before relying on the combination. The right order and timing of applications can change the outcome.

How to Apply and Get Free Help

The steps below are the pension route, the one this guide covers: the VA's condition for it is that "You may be eligible for this benefit if you get a VA pension." Aid and Attendance is not pension-only, though. VA Form 21-2680 is used to claim Aid and Attendance benefits "that will be added to your monthly compensation or pension benefits," so a veteran who receives VA disability compensation rather than a pension files that form to have the increase added to the compensation, and should not file the wartime pension application below.

On the pension route you apply with these VA forms:

  • VA Form 21-2680 (Examination for Housebound Status or Permanent Need for Regular Aid and Attendance), whose examination section a medical examiner must fill out documenting the need for help, which for dementia means documenting the supervision and hands-on care the person requires.
  • VA Form 21P-527EZ (Application for Veterans Pension), which is the pension claim itself, for a wartime veteran who isn't already receiving a VA pension.
  • VA Form 21-0966 (Intent to File), optional and first, if you're still gathering information. Submitting an intent to file, the VA says, "can secure the earliest possible effective date for any retroactive payments you may be eligible to receive."

You can file online at VA.gov, by mail to the VA Pension Intake Center, or in person at a VA regional office, and an accredited attorney, accredited claims agent, or accredited Veterans Service Organization representative can help you file. Asked how long a decision takes, the VA answers "It depends," and adds that it processes claims in the order it receives them, unless a claim requires priority processing.

Don't do this alone. The Illinois Department of Veterans' Affairs (IDVA) says its Veteran Service Officers are trained and accredited by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs to provide free assistance to veterans and their dependents and survivors, covering both applying for federal and state benefits and resources related to compensation and pension. Aid and Attendance is paid as part of a VA pension, so an A&A claim sits inside that pension category. IDVA runs full-time and part-time (itinerant) offices statewide; find your nearest one using IDVA's online VSO locator at veterans.illinois.gov/serviceoffices.html.

Frequently Asked Questions

Does VA Aid and Attendance pay the memory care facility directly?

No. Aid and Attendance is paid as part of the veteran's or surviving spouse's monthly VA pension, so it goes to them rather than to the community. The family receives the benefit and applies it toward the cost of care, so you stay in control of how the money is spent.

Do veterans with dementia qualify for Aid and Attendance?

Often, yes. The benefit's care-need test, needing help with daily activities or protection from the hazards of daily life, is commonly met by Alzheimer's and related dementias. A VA Form 21-2680 whose examination section a medical examiner has filled out documenting that need is what supports the claim.

Can the cost of memory care help me qualify financially?

Often, yes. Unreimbursed medical expenses lower the income the VA counts, and only the portion above 5% of the applicable maximum annual pension rate is deductible. The VA illustrates that floor as $872 a year for a veteran with no spouse or child. A veteran who looks too high-income on paper can often still qualify once deductible expenses come off, so ask a Veteran Service Officer which of a memory care community's charges the VA will accept.

Can a surviving spouse get Aid and Attendance for memory care?

Yes. The maximum Survivors Pension with Aid and Attendance for a surviving spouse with no dependents is $18,697 for the year in 2026, about $1,558 a month, subject to the same $163,699 net worth limit. Like the veteran benefit, it's monthly cash that can go toward a memory care bill.

How do we pay for memory care while we wait for a decision?

Many families move a loved one into memory care before the VA decides the claim. Asked how long a decision takes, the VA answers "It depends," and adds that it processes claims in the order it receives them, unless a claim requires priority processing. The benefit isn't necessarily lost during that wait: if the VA approves the claim, you may be able to receive retroactive payments, and filing an Intent to File (VA Form 21-0966) before the full application sets a potential start date and then gives you up to a year to complete the claim. So a family paying out of pocket while the claim is pending may still recover some of it once the claim is granted.

Compare Care Settings in Illinois

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

Learn More

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Your next step Find personalized help using VA benefits to pay for memory care in Illinois 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.

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