Michigan Veteran Homes

The Michigan veterans' facility authority act, 2016 PA 560, replaced an 1885 statute and put the homes under an authority with a board of directors rather than under a board of managers. Michigan Veteran Homes operates facilities at Chesterfield Township, Grand Rapids and Marquette. Who is eligible. Section 36.106a(1) makes the test federal rather than state: a veteran eligible for the United States Department of Veterans Affairs' health care or financial assistance for long-term nursing or day care, and a dependent of such a veteran, or of a veteran who was eligible at the time of death. There is no Michigan residency requirement in the section, no minimum wartime service, and no income test. Who counts as a dependent is wider than usual. A widow, widower, former spouse, or spouse of a veteran, or a gold star parent. A former spouse is named, which is rare. A gold star parent means an individual who has had a son or daughter die while serving in the armed forces, or in forces incorporated as part of them, meeting the criteria in 10 USC 1126(a)(1) to (3) for a gold star lapel button. A bereaved parent who is not a veteran and never married one can be admitted. What it costs. As a condition of admission each veteran and dependent must agree to pay Michigan Veteran Homes a sum based on their income and assets to support the care and services received. Michigan Veteran Homes determines the per diem maintenance rate annually and presents it to the board for approval. Money collected, and direct VA payments for services, go into the veterans' facility operation fund. What happens to the money at death, which is the contrast worth drawing. Michigan Veteran Homes may deduct from money it holds on behalf of a deceased resident what the resident owed at death and any funeral or burial expenses the home incurred, and shall then remit any remaining money to the next of kin. If after two years it cannot find a surviving relative or next of kin, the remaining money goes into a charitable support fund. That is the opposite of the South Dakota rule, where the state veterans home is sole heir of a resident who dies without dependents and without a will and holds a preferred claim for the full cost of care back to admission. Michigan takes what it is owed and gives back the rest. Failure to pay. A veteran's or dependent's failure to remit a payment agreed to as a condition of admission is cause for dismissal from the facility. The appeals board. Section 36.106b creates a five-member appeals board within the authority that hears all appeals about admissions decisions, involuntary dismissals, and requests for interment at a cemetery maintained by Michigan Veteran Homes. Three members come from lists of three submitted by the American Legion, the Veterans of Foreign Wars and the Disabled American Veterans; two are veterans who have had interactions or involvement at one or more veterans' facilities within the last two years. A veteran refused admission or facing dismissal has a route to a body that is mostly veterans and partly appointed by the service organisations. Oversight. The authority reports under 36.112 and files quarterly reports under 36.112a, which must include the number of facility resident deaths since the last report. That reporting requirement exists because of the history of the homes, and it is worth knowing it is there. One of the three board appointments under 36.105 for members with professional knowledge of long-term care, licensure, finance or medicine must be a resident of the Upper Peninsula, which is how the statute keeps the Marquette facility represented.