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My parents are both housebound but occasionally need an antibiotic. Their current senior plan covers house calls from a local company. My dad occasionally gets pneumonia which responds to antibiotics so far. They are both DNR and refuse any more hospital care, but are willing to be treated at home.

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Part of the Veterans Affairs Department's VA Innovation Initiative (VAi2) Industry Innovation Competition, the effort uses the Online Care system developed by American Well to provide a variety of online services. The Online Care service allows veterans to visit their health care providers, both primary doctors and multidisciplinary care teams, online.

Patients and clinicians communicate via two-way video, secure text and/or telephone. Through the system, doctors can review patients’ health records, discuss symptoms, provide advice, make diagnoses and prescribe medications. Each session is automatically recorded, allowing veterans to share the information with health care providers to provide continuity of care.
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Your parent who's the veteran, or both if both are veterans, would have to be enrolled as a patient at the "local" VA Medical Center and either treated out of that center or a closer out patient clinic for starters. That means he or she would get a new PCP on top of the one they probably already like.

If he or she is not enrolled, there is a form you can get online, VA form 10-10EZ "Application for Health Benefits." You'll need to send that in along with a copy of his/her DD-214 or discharge papers, any Purple Heart certificates not mentioned on his/her DD-214, copies of his/her medical insurance cards, and copies of any decisions by the VA regarding service connected disabilities. That will establish basic eligibility for health care through the VA. The amount of service connected disabilities matters because having a combined disability rating of 50% or more means that health care is cost free to the veteran, including prescriptions picked up or mailed to your parents' home. Lesser amounts of disability still matter because service connected disabilities are treated for free even if others are not.

However, before you expend a lot energy filling out paperwork, you probably ought to call the local VA Medical Center and ask to talk to one of the social workers in primary care about home care options.

I saw this blog posting and got excited:
http://www.blogs.va.gov/VAntage/10562/va-provides-long-term-care-options-to-veterans/

Then I called the VA Medical Center where my FIL had been enrolled for care in years past. There is a limit to what they can provide which left me disappointed at the difference between the marketing and the delivery - but that's the VA.

However, if enrolled in the system and receiving care, care does appear to be able to be brought directly into their home - so long as the resources are available and your dad or mom qualifies through whatever the specific limits on that program are. For instance, there are federal VA nursing homes attached to VA Medical Centers but veterans must have a combined disability rating of 70% or higher to qualify.

The VA is a whole other world sometimes. Hope this helps you begin to navigate it.
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I just want to share this site PDFFiller, Inc where you can fill out VA form 10-10EZ easily. You can either save, print, fax, mail, share or send to sign the form from the site. I was also able to fill out the form I need through goo.gl/FmF7gQ.
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