Veterans Home Care in Cherry Hill

A veteran we serve spent the better part of a year telling his family the same thing: he did not need anyone in his house. We hear that from a lot of veterans. What changed his mind was not an argument. It was learning that the VA had a benefit waiting for him that he had never claimed. Working with an attorney, we helped him get his Aid and Attendance application together. The monthly payments started, the help stopped feeling like charity, and that was six years ago. Today he will tell you he cannot live without his caregiver.

Most families in Camden and Burlington County have never heard of that benefit. Here is what it is, what the VA actually pays in 2026, the three other programs worth knowing, and where the paperwork gets done at no charge. If this is all new, our plain-language overview of what veterans should know about home care is a good place to start.

The VA benefit most families have never heard of

Aid and Attendance adds a monthly cash payment to a VA pension for wartime veterans, and for their surviving spouses, when everyday things like bathing, dressing, or moving through the house safely now take another set of hands. The VA pays the veteran. The veteran decides who provides the care.

For the current period, December 1, 2025 through November 30, 2026, the maximum monthly amounts are:

• Up to $2,424 for a single veteran
• Up to $2,874 for a married veteran
• Up to $1,558 for a surviving spouse
• Up to $3,845 when two married veterans both need care

The net worth ceiling for the same period is $163,699. The house is excluded from that number, and so is a vehicle. Almost nobody receives the exact maximum. The VA looks at countable income, and unreimbursed medical and care expenses reduce that income. That last part is what families miss. The care you are already paying for out of pocket can be the very thing that qualifies you.

The VA posts current rates at va.gov/pension/veterans-pension-rates. Both the amounts and the eligibility decisions belong to the VA alone.

Who can get it

Four requirements, all of them together:

• 90 days or more of active duty, at least one of those days during a wartime period
• A discharge that was anything other than dishonorable
• A doctor confirming the need for help with daily activities, or housebound status
• Finances that fall inside the VA's income and net worth limits

Notice what is not on that list. Nothing has to be connected to his service. A man who spent two uneventful years stateside in the 1950s and now has Parkinson's can qualify. A widow whose husband never filed a single VA claim in his life can qualify on his record.

Three more VA programs worth asking about

Homemaker and Home Health Aide (H/HHA) runs in the opposite direction from Aid and Attendance. No cash goes to the veteran. The VA care team approves a set number of weekly hours, and the VA pays an approved agency for them directly. No disability rating is needed, only enrollment in VA health care and a documented need. The hours cover non-medical help, what we call personal care and companion care. One thing worth knowing: the approved hours are often fewer than a family wants. Many of the veterans we care for use their VA hours and pay privately for the rest, a weekend morning here, a few evenings there. Both can run side by side without any penalty.

The Program of Comprehensive Assistance for Family Caregivers (PCAFC) is aimed at the person doing the caregiving rather than the veteran. When a veteran is eligible, the family caregiver can receive a monthly stipend, and the program builds in respite time each year, at minimum 30 days of it.

Veteran-Directed Care (VDC) gives the veteran a budget to manage and direct on his own. It is not offered at every VA location, so ask the care team whether it is available.

The timing rule that costs families real money

Aid and Attendance is a pension, and pensions pay retroactively. Once a claim is approved, the money reaches back to the day it was filed. A slow decision costs you patience, not dollars.

Homemaker and Home Health Aide will not do that. The VA has to authorize the hours first, and it does not reimburse care delivered before the authorization. Whatever you spend during the wait stays spent.

Now put that at a hospital discharge. Your father is coming home from Virtua Voorhees or Jefferson Cherry Hill Hospital after a fall, or your mother is leaving Virtua Marlton or Virtua Mount Holly and cannot be alone yet. If the family is filing for Aid and Attendance, starting care that same week costs nothing in the end, because the back pay covers the stretch. If the plan is H/HHA, every hour before the approval is money that never comes back. Which track you are on should shape what you do in those first days. Sorting that out is usually the first thing we help a family untangle on the phone.

Claim help that costs nothing, in both counties

Paying a company to file a VA claim is never necessary. The people who do it well cost nothing.

On the Camden County side, the Office of Veterans Affairs works out of the Wolverton Library at 200 College Drive in Blackwood. Call (856) 374-5801, or 1-800-464-VETS. In Burlington County, the Department of Military and Veteran's Services is at the Human Services building on Woodlane Road in Westampton, at (609) 265-5008, and they ask you to call ahead so your case gets enough time. The Veteran Service Officers in both offices file these claims week in and week out.

You can also look up a VA-accredited representative at va.gov/ogc/apps/accreditation. For Aid and Attendance claims, we can also connect you with a VA-accredited attorney we work with, at no cost to you. If the veteran is not yet enrolled in VA health care, that comes first for the H/HHA track. It is VA Form 10-10EZ, and a copy is inside the guide below.

How veteran care works at our Cherry Hill office

Comfort Keepers is an official VA provider. When the VA authorizes care at home through its Community Care network, we deliver it, and we provide the visit documentation the VA wants along the way. To be clear about what we are not: we are not the VA and not part of it, eligibility is never our call, and the claim is not ours to file.

Comfort Keepers has cared for seniors since 1998, and our Cherry Hill office has served Camden and Burlington County families since 2007. The office is accredited by NIHCA, the National Institute of Home Care Accreditation, an independent body that audits home care agencies against national standards. Carol Feliciano, BSN, RN, our seasoned Director of Nursing, is the clinical set of eyes on every veteran's case. A lifelong Moorestown resident with more than 30 years of nursing behind her, she does the first assessment wherever the family needs her: at home, at the hospital, or at rehab. Alongside her, one person becomes your single point of contact: our attentive Client Care Coordinator, Charice Creecy, who goes by CC. When a schedule needs to move or something in the home needs attention, CC is the call you make, and she puts the rest of the team to work for you.

Every caregiver who walks through a client's door is our employee. We hire them, we supervise them, and we answer for them. The ones who work with veterans living with dementia are trained through Positive Pathways, the Alzheimer's Association-recognized dementia care program.

Two things we say plainly. We cannot make the VA decide faster, and neither can anyone else. And home care is not always the answer. When a veteran needs more than care at home can safely provide, we tell the family that. For the many it does fit, our guide to veteran in-home care in Voorhees shows what a week of care actually looks like.

Two guides, written by our team, nothing asked in return

You can download both without giving us an email address or a phone number.

The 2026 Aid & Attendance Guide. Seventy-two pages covering eligibility, the net worth math, the forms, and how to file without paying anyone.

Download here

The 2026 Homemaker & Home Health Aide Guide. Seventeen pages on what the benefit covers, the eight application steps, and a printable copy of VA Form 10-10EZ.

Download here

Some families read them and never call us. That is fine with us. It means the guides did their job.

The state veterans home in Vineland

New Jersey runs three state veterans homes, and the one serving South Jersey is the New Jersey Veterans Memorial Home at Vineland, at 524 North West Boulevard. It is the state's oldest, serving veterans since 1899, rebuilt on the same site in 2005, with room for 300 residents. It is Medicare certified, licensed by the state, and certified by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. Admissions and tours run through (856) 405-4217.

Eligibility reaches further than most families expect. Wartime and peacetime service both count, with an other-than-dishonorable discharge, and spouses can be admitted too. One rule catches families late: a spouse must be at least 50 and married to the veteran for ten years or more.

For some veterans, Vineland is the right answer, and a tour will show you that. For others, the tour is the moment the family decides home is where he belongs. Either way, the decision is better for having seen it.

Questions Cherry Hill families ask us

My mother was married to a Korean War veteran who passed away in the 1980s. Is it too late for her?

No. There is no deadline tied to how long ago the veteran died. On his record she can file for the Survivors Pension with the Aid and Attendance addition, which in 2026 reaches $1,558 a month at the top end, even though he never filed anything himself.

If the money comes through Aid and Attendance, do we have to use a particular agency?

No. Aid and Attendance money belongs to the veteran, and the family chooses who provides the care. Our guide on how to choose a home care agency covers what to ask whoever you consider. The Homemaker and Home Health Aide program is different: those hours must come from a VA-approved agency. We are one.

Will the VA cover enough hours?

Under Homemaker and Home Health Aide, the VA decides how many weekly hours it will approve, and families often want more than the approval covers. Plenty of veterans we serve use every VA hour and pay privately for the coverage beyond it. Mixing the two is normal and allowed.

What happens to care while we wait on a decision?

You can start private-pay care whenever you choose. If the claim is Aid and Attendance, the back pay will reach your filing date. If it is H/HHA, nothing before the authorization gets covered, which is exactly why we ask which program you are pursuing before we talk about a schedule. If you are getting ready to begin, here is what to have in place before in-home care starts.

What does it cost to find out whether any of this is worth pursuing?

Nothing. The county Veteran Service Officers cost nothing. The guides cost nothing. Our consultation is no cost and no obligation. The only expensive move is assuming the answer is no.

About the veteran who did not want help

He still insists he never needed anybody. His caregiver has been with him six years now, and she knows how he takes his coffee and which chair is his. That is what this benefit really buys a family. Not a service. A person.

If your father or mother served, or was married to someone who did, have a conversation with us. Call (856) 857-6120. We care for veterans and their families across Cherry Hill, Haddonfield, Collingswood, Haddon Township, Maple Shade, Marlton, Moorestown, Mount Laurel, Voorhees, and Somerdale on the Camden County side, and Medford, Mount Holly, Columbus, Pemberton, and Rancocas in Burlington County. We talk families through this every day, and there is no obligation to use us.