Participants in the VA’s Program of Comprehensive Assistance for Family Caregivers (PCAFC) can remain enrolled through Sept. 30, 2028, as work continues on possible changes to eligibility criteria, the department announced in a Sept. 26 email.

The decision allows these caregivers to maintain access to a range of critical benefits, including a stipend some worried could be cut or withdrawn completely as new criteria took effect. The VA had pledged to keep legacy participants enrolled through Sept. 30, 2025; the new rule, published Sept. 29 in the Federal Register, adds three years to that extension.

“While the PCAFC’s future remains uncertain, MOAA is grateful to the VA for taking this step to provide some clarity and reassurance to legacy program participants,” said Cmdr. René Campos, USN (Ret), MOAA’s senior director of Government Relations. “We will remain involved with the VA’s efforts to establish new criteria as part of our ongoing work to provide those who care for our veterans with the resources and support they need and deserve.”

PCAFC programs include respite care, education and training, mental health counseling, and some travel expenses. Primary family caregivers under the program qualify not just for a stipend, but may access health care coverage and some legal and financial services.

The recent extension covers all legacy participants, even those who “received a preliminary determination that they did not meet the [new] criteria or were determined eligible but at a reduced stipend amount,” according to the VA’s announcement.

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Past, Present, and Future of Caregiver Support

PCAFC came online in 2011 and was designed to support caregivers of post-9/11 veterans. Plans were made to expand the program in 2018 to caregivers “of eligible veterans who have a serious injury incurred or aggravated in the line of duty” prior to Sept. 11, 2001, according to the Federal Register rule update.

This move came with new eligibility criteria for all program participants, triggering enrollment issues, delays, court challenges, and a series of other problems that resulted in multiple deadline extensions.

Work on the new criteria restarted in earnest in 2022. MOAA and 11 other advocacy groups wrote to the White House in 2024 asking then-President Joe Biden to release the new criteria “as soon as possible,” as further delay “would only serve to prolong the strain that so many veterans and caregivers have felt while PCAFC continues to fall short of its intent and potential.”

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While the criteria come into focus, MOAA has continued its work on behalf of caregivers on multiple levels, including the halls of Congress. The Veteran Caregiver Reeducation, Reemployment, and Retirement (3R) Act, part of MOAA’s 2025 Advocacy in Action campaign, would improve and expand benefits offered to PCAFC participants, to include:

• Reimbursement for licensure fees and access to VA training modules for continuing education.
• Employment assistance for caregivers reentering the workforce.
• Retirement planning services, along with a study looking at the establishment of a retirement plan specifically for caregivers.

You can help MOAA make its case by reaching out to your lawmakers and asking them to support this bipartisan legislation.