1. VARIABILITY IN ACCESS TO VA’S AID AND ATTENDANCE PENSION BENEFIT: A MIXED-METHODS STUDY
- Author
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Taylor Rickard, Emily Corneau, Susan M. Allen, Kali S. Thomas, and Stefanie Gidmark
- Subjects
Session 3435 (Paper) ,Pension ,Abstracts ,Health (social science) ,Actuarial science ,Attendance ,Lgbtq and Aging ,Business ,Life-span and Life-course Studies ,Health Professions (miscellaneous) ,humanities ,health care economics and organizations - Abstract
The Veterans Benefit Administration’s (VBA) Aid and Attendance enhanced pension benefit (A&A) is available to older, low-income Veterans who require assistance meeting their daily needs. However, reports indicate that A&A is underutilized with only 1/3 of eligible Veterans receiving this benefit. The objective of this mixed methods study is to characterize the variability in A&A enrollment across VA Medical Centers (VAMCs) and determine factors attributable to the variation. Using VA administrative data, we calculated the rate of enrollment in A&A among Veterans receiving pension. We then purposefully sampled 16 Chiefs of Social Work at VAMCs with the highest (n=7) and lowest (n=9) rates of enrollment. Interviews were transcribed, coded, and analyzed using conventional qualitative research methods. The rate of enrollment in A&A varies from
- Published
- 2019