KENNEBUNK, Maine — $58,437.
That’s a figure that has haunted Edie Rossborough day and night for the past three months. Three months of filling out forms over and over again, emailing and calling contacts at the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, and dotting every “i” and crossing every “t,” to no avail.
$58,437 is the amount the VA has paid in Aid and Attendance Benefits for Rossborough’s mother Betty Phillips’ care in memory care facilities since November 2013.
It’s also the amount the Veterans Administration asked Rossborough, who acts as her mother’s federal fiduciary, to repay within 60 days because it suddenly declared her mother ineligible for benefits.
Betty Phillips, 88, has advanced stage Alzheimer’s disease and has been in a memory care facility since 2013. Rossborough takes care of all of her finances and pays her bills each month. Rossborough’s father, Loyd Phillips, was a Navy veteran, which provided eligibility for his wife for VA Aid and Attendance, a little-known benefit that helps with home care and assisted living costs.
The problems began in early November, when Rossborough received a letter from the VA saying it had not been notified that Betty Phillips had been moved from a private pay facility to a Medicaid facility in September. The letter warns that “failure to return these forms will result in the removal of any unverified medical expenses retroactive to November, 2013 creating an overpayment that will be subject to repayment.”
However, Rossborough had sent notification and all of the proper forms to the VA and has the documentation to prove it. Nevertheless, she sent the forms again on the advice of VA Field Examiner Randall Minet, whom she had been working closely with for the past five years. Again, they went unrecognized at the VA.
In February, Rossborough received a letter from the VA saying since it had not received any forms or information regarding Betty Phillip’s new facility they had terminated her Aid and Attendance benefits retroactive to November 2013.
“At this point I was in tears. I had filled out all of the forms, and was caught in this is a bureaucratic nightmare created by the VA. And it got worse at every turn. It’s almost too ridiculous to believe. Every time I see an envelope from the VA in the mail I just have so much anxiety,” Rossborough said through tears during an interview Wednesday at her home.
Rossborough shared her ordeal in a long, heart-wrenching post on Facebook earlier in the week.
“This is the number that keeps me up at night and makes me sick to my stomach. I’m at the point now that when I see a VA envelope in the mailbox I have a physical reaction. My pulse races, I get all hot, my hands shake, and I feel sick,” Rossborough shared. “I have absolutely no problem providing the VA with any information at all regarding my mother’s care. I have facility bills, payment receipts, bank statements (every penny that has left her account has gone directly to a facility), anything they want. I just wish they had asked for the information and given me the opportunity to provide it before creating a bogus debt in my name and threatening to ruin my credit. I have operated in good faith handling both my mother’s care and her finances, I wish I could say the same of the Veterans Administration.”
Following the interview with the York County Coast Star Wednesday, and after the newspaper sent emails and placed a phone call to the VA in an attempt to gain comment for this story, Rossborough learned Thursday that the medical expenses had been reinstated and the $58,437 debt had been erased.
According to Rossborough, Josh Broadbelt, assistant public affairs officer for the Department of Veterans Affairs in Philadelphia, called her Thursday morning with the news, apologizing for the VA’s mistakes.
Broadbelt also called the York County Coast Star Thursday morning confirming he had been in touch with Rossborough.
In a phone interview Thursday, Rossborough was elated, and thankful for the resolution.
“I’m just so relieved. I told them next to losing my dad to lung cancer five years ago, and watching my mother slowly decline before my eyes with Alzheimer’s, this three-month period has been the most stressful of my life,” she said. “I shudder to think how many others are in this situation who don’t have the resources to work through and fight this.”
Rossborough said her father was a proud Navy veteran serving from 1943 to 1963, spanning World War II, the Korean War and Vietnam. He died in 2013 from lung cancer, and before he died his greatest concern was his wife’s care as her Alzheimer’s worsened.
“His mind was sharp, and he knew he wasn’t going to be around to care for her. To his last breath, he wanted to make sure she was cared for. Those were his last concerns. Securing this benefit was part of taking care of Mom. He felt good about the fact that this was something that he earned that would help take care of her,” Rossborough said.
When Rossborough and her three siblings, brothers Floyd and Boyd Phillips and sister Cheryl Phillips Day all of Kennebunk learned of the largely unpublished program and discovered that their mother was eligible for the benefits, they knew it would mean they could keep their mother in a private memory care facility a little longer. It essentially gave them another year.
At an average of $70,000 a year for Betty Phillips’ care, an extra $1,100 a month was welcome. With Alzheimer’s disease, Betty’s memory and ability to care for herself are gone, but she’s still physically healthy.
“My sister says Mom’s going to be the one turning out the lights,” Rossborough joked. “We really had no idea she would still be with us, but physically she’s still doing really well.”
The four children sold the family home after their father died and put the money aside to care for their mother. After four years in private care facilities, the money ran out last summer.
“We used every penny. We were out of money, so we knew we needed to move her. But it made us happy that we were able to keep her there as long as we could,” Rossborough said.
Betty Phillips is at St. Andre’s in Biddeford now and she’s happy and well cared for, according to her daughter.
“She knows when I visit that I’m someone special, but she doesn’t know that I’m her daughter,” Rossborough said through tears.
Her mother’s Aid and Attendance benefits will be reduced from roughly $1,100 a month to $90 now that she is in a Medicare facility. Rossborough doesn’t care. In fact. after her ordeal, she said she may just tell the VA to keep the $90 so she doesn’t have to worry about another costly mix-up.
“I feel sorry knowing there are people out there being put through a similar nightmare with the VA. It’s just not right.”
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