I Need Help With Serious Illness, Comfort, or Hospice Through VA

Ask Which Care Routes Are Available

Ask the VA social worker or treating clinician what fits now:

• palliative care
• hospice
• Home Based Primary Care, which brings a VA clinical team into the home but doesn’t replace daily hands-on caregiving
• care through a VA facility
• an authorized community provider
• Medicare, Medicaid, insurance, or another non-VA route

Don’t wait on one route before checking the others.

Choose Between Palliative Care and Hospice

Palliative care can help with symptoms, stress, communication, and difficult decisions while treatment continues.

Hospice may fit when the Veteran has a terminal condition, meets the clinical criteria, and wants care focused on comfort. Ask which current treatments could continue and which would change.

Ask:

• What’s available for this Veteran?
• Does VA authorization have to be completed, and is it?
• Which provider has accepted the Veteran?
• When can care begin?

Inpatient hospice isn’t guaranteed because care at home is becoming difficult.

Admission depends on the Veteran’s needs and whether a bed and appropriate setting are available.

Ask What VA Will Pay

There’s no VA copay for the hospice care itself when it’s provided by VA or a VA-contracted hospice. Other costs connected with where the Veteran lives or services outside the hospice benefit may still remain.

Ask:

• Is this hospice being provided by VA, authorized by VA, or neither?
• Are medications, equipment, and transportation covered?
• Could room, board, or personal-care charges remain?
• What should the Veteran or family expect to pay?

Don’t turn down needed care because you assume the cost. Ask what applies to this Veteran and this arrangement.

Ask About Veteran-Specific Care

Military experiences or past trauma can affect how some Veterans respond to serious illness, touch, procedures, loss of control, and dying.

“Does your team have experience caring for Veterans near the end of life?”

You can also ask whether the hospice is a We Honor Veterans partner, a program that helps hospices build Veteran-specific knowledge and care.

Also ask whether military experiences or trauma may be affecting fear, agitation, withdrawal, touch, or loss of control.

If distress is becoming part of the problem, use I Need Help With Distress, Trauma, or Caregiver Strain for a Veteran →

Put the Veteran’s Wishes in the VA Record

Ask what matters most to the Veteran and who they want to speak for them.

If there’s an advance directive:

• give a copy to the VA health care team
• ask for it to be added to the VA medical record
• give a copy to the person named to speak for the Veteran

VA accepts its own VA Form 10-0137 as well as valid state advance directives.

Don’t assume VA has the document because it was completed somewhere else.

See I Need Advance Directive Forms →

Before You Rely on the Plan

Confirm:

• the provider has accepted the Veteran
• any required VA authorization is complete
• the start date is known
• you know who manages symptoms after hours
• there’s a backup if the bed, equipment, or authorization doesn’t come through

A referral isn’t care. A provider’s willingness to help doesn’t mean VA will pay.

If the Veteran is terminally ill and has a pending VA claim, ask about requesting priority processing.

See I Need Help With VA Benefits, Claims, or Family Coverage →

Who to Ask

• Treating clinician or VA social worker: which palliative, hospice, home-based, inpatient, or community-care route fits
• Hospice or palliative care team: symptom management, after-hours help, and what the family will still need to provide
• Discharge planner: whether the provider, authorization, medications, equipment, transportation, and start date are actually arranged
• VA Caregiver Support Team: help when serious illness increases what the caregiver is carrying