Find an American Legion service officer: www. Skip to main content. Q: Am I eligible for a special monthly compensation? The two most common SMC letters are: K: Anatomical loss of either one hand, one foot, both buttocks, one or more creative organs used for reproduction due to trauma while in the service or as a residual of service-connected disabilities , one eye, voice due to disease or deafness of both ears.
VA special monthly compensation SMC is a higher rate of compensation that we pay to Veterans as well as their spouses, surviving spouses, and parents with certain needs or disabilities. Find the special monthly compensation rates that may apply to you.
Levels L through O cover specific disabilities and situations. Level R may apply if you need daily help from another person for basic needs like dressing, eating, and bathing.
Start with the Basic SMC rates table. Find the dependent status in the left column that best describes you. Then look for your SMC letter designation in the top row. Your monthly basic rate is where your dependent status and SMC letter meet. If you have more than one child or your spouse receives Aid and Attendance benefits , be sure to also look at the Added amounts table, and add these to your amount from the Basic SMC rates table. These adjustments help to make sure that the purchasing power of your benefits keeps up with inflation.
Go to the SMC rate that applies to you. This is your monthly basic rate. If your spouse receives Aid and Attendance benefits or you have more than one child, you may qualify for additional monthly payment amounts as listed in the Added amounts table.
Next, look at the Added amounts table. We assign SMC levels based on very specific situations and combinations of situations, including:. Select an SMC letter below to learn more about the specific situations and combinations of situations that fall within that designation. You may receive an SMC-L designation if any of the below situations are true for you.
You may receive an SMC-M designation if any of the below situations are true for you. You may receive an SMC-N designation if any of the below situations are true for you. Or you have total blindness with only the ability to perceive light in one eye, and you have:. Or you have total blindness with only the ability to perceive light in both eyes, and you have:. You can stack them, so to speak and I think that was a good point that you made earlier.
There is no amputation requirement. Emma : Sure. So S is the next step up from K. This is where the building blocks come in and the math gets confusing. And then from there, it just increases. So, after— as now we start getting into different body parts that you need to combine together to get to the different levels.
So we have SMC-L, which could be awarded for if you a loss of use of two hands, two feet, your eyes, your hearing, or you need something call aid and attendance. So those things together, those combinations of things will get you SMC-L and then from there, you build even more.
And it goes up from there, it just goes to higher levels of loss of use. And then finally we get to O. And you get there by combining Ls, Ms, and Ns. So those different combinations really build up together.
Maura : And something that you mentioned that is integral in those different levels is the concept of aid and attendance. Tell us what aid and attendance is, how you could suffice that requirement because that seems to be pretty important in terms of showing eligibility for SMC benefits.
Emma : Right. So aid and attendance, it kind of is what it sounds like, you need the aid attendance of another person to help you carry out your daily acti— daily living, daily activities.
That can qualify for aid in attendance. Now that aid in attendance on its own is at SMC level L. Maura : That makes sense. And one thing that we have seen questions about before about aid and attendance is that or is the question that is that a benefit than can extend to the caregiver or to the veteran themselves? Can their caregiver get paid that benefit? Do you know the answer to that? Emma : So aid and attendance gets paid to the veteran.
But aid and attendance is paid to the veteran themselves. Lindy, what happens if there is one specific claimant who is eligible for different types or multiple levels of SMC?
How do the payments work in that type of scenario? So, Emma kind of referenced this but some of the time, if you have multiple levels of SMC, they can combine together to give you that next level of SMC.
And so I know that sounds kind of complicated. It is. Lindy : But basically so, in an example like that, a veteran could be receiving L due to loss of use for something extremities. They combine together to get you that next higher level of O for SMC. I like L, come forward L. So yes, SMC-L but you have other conditions that separately combine to a So you can get bumped up a full step, so there are ways beyond that just meeting more SMC building blocks that get that kicker up to the next higher level.
Tell us about R1 and R2 and summarize for us please the difference between the two because this is, yes, another subsection of SMC that can get kind of complicated. So as Maura said, there are kind of two sections to R.
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