Alaska Veterans and Pioneers Home

Alaska has one state veterans home, the Alaska Veterans and Pioneers Home at Palmer, and it is not a standalone veterans facility. It is one of the six Alaska Pioneer Homes, operating under AS 47.55 and run by the Division of Alaska Pioneer Homes, with a portion of its beds designated for veterans. That structure explains most of what is unusual about it. Admission runs through the Pioneer Homes waitlist with a veterans addendum rather than through a separate veterans process, the rates are the Pioneer Homes rates, and the payment assistance program is the Pioneer Homes program. Eligibility has four parts. The applicant must be a resident of Alaska continuously for at least one year immediately preceding application. The applicant must be sixty years of age or older. The applicant must need the residence because of physical disability or other reasons the regulations recognise. And the discharge must be honorable or other than dishonorable, from the United States armed forces, the Alaska National Guard or the Alaska Territorial Guard. Sixty rather than sixty-five, and one year of residency rather than two, make this less restrictive than several state homes in this catalog. What makes it hard is capacity: one home, and a waitlist. Cost is the part a family should understand before applying, because this is not free care. The Pioneer Homes charge by level of service, and the published monthly rates run from roughly $3,458 at Level I through about $6,292 at Level II and $9,111 at Level III to over $16,305 at the highest level. Those are monthly figures and they are among the highest state-home rates in this catalog. The Payment Assistance Program is what makes it reachable. It is available to a resident who has applied for a Medicaid waiver or another program, been denied, and is unable to pay the monthly fee. Monthly fees are then based on ability to pay and cover housing, meals, emergency assistance, recreation and the services appropriate to the assessed level of care. A family should treat the application for payment assistance as part of the admission process rather than something to consider later. Spouses of eligible veterans are admitted to the Pioneer Homes on the ordinary Pioneer Homes terms rather than through a veterans route, since the homes serve Alaska seniors generally. VA per diem supports the veteran beds, which is what allows the veterans designation, and a veteran with a service-connected condition at a qualifying level may have substantially more of the cost covered by VA than the published rate suggests. That determination is made by VA rather than by the home.