This often-overlooked VA pension can add up to roughly $2,900 a month toward senior care. Here's how Kansas City veterans and surviving spouses served by VA Kansas City and the Leavenworth VA qualify — and where to get free help.
By James Porter, LSW · April 29, 2026
Aid & Attendance (A&A) is an enhanced VA pension for wartime veterans and surviving spouses who need help with daily activities such as bathing, dressing, or medication management. In 2026, it can add roughly $1,800–$2,900 a month toward assisted living, memory care, in-home care, or nursing care costs — making it one of the largest sources of private-pay assistance available to Kansas City's veteran population. Veterans do not need to be enrolled in VA health care to apply for Aid & Attendance.
The Kansas City metro is well served by VA facilities on both sides of the state line. The VA Kansas City medical center at 4801 Linwood Blvd in Kansas City, Missouri serves the metro's veterans, and the Leavenworth VA Medical Center in Leavenworth, Kansas serves the Kansas side and surrounding counties. Because A&A eligibility follows the veteran and not the facility, a veteran can use the benefit toward care in either Missouri or Kansas — but the state still determines Medicaid (MO HealthNet MLTC vs. KanCare) if the family later needs that as well.
Eligibility generally requires wartime military service (a qualifying period such as WWII, Korea, Vietnam, or the Gulf War), an honorable or general discharge, a medical need for daily assistance, and income and net worth within VA limits. The asset rules changed significantly in 2018 with a 36-month look-back on asset transfers, so getting the application right the first time matters. Surviving spouses of eligible wartime veterans may also qualify, typically at a lower benefit rate than the veteran rate.
As a licensed social worker who has spent years on hospital discharge floors at KU Med and Research Medical Center, I've watched families miss this benefit simply because no one told them it existed. If your veteran parent is paying privately for assisted living or memory care in the KC metro, Aid & Attendance is worth investigating even if you think the assets are too high — the net-worth rules have exclusions many families don't expect.
Start with an accredited Veterans Service Officer — Missouri and Kansas both maintain state veterans commissions and county service officers who provide free A&A claims assistance. The social work service at the VA Kansas City medical center and the Leavenworth VA can also point families to accredited help. Avoid paying anyone a fee to file an A&A claim; accredited assistance is free.
The VA Caregiver Support Line at 1-855-260-3274 is another free resource for families juggling a care search and a benefits application at the same time. A free senior advisor who knows which KC-area communities readily accept and coordinate with Aid & Attendance can help time the benefit alongside a placement, so families aren't managing a VA claim and a care search under pressure simultaneously.
Free, no-pressure call. We work for families, not facilities.