KNOWING YOUR BENEFITS

These sites provide you the initial knowledge you need of your benefits and entitlements.

• VBA Website: The relatively new VBA Website has become more useful.  Simply go to the upper left corner, select who you are  under “I AM A …” and then select the benefits area of interest below it. Remember it only addresses benefits provided by the Department of Veterans Affairs.

• Vets.gov:  This a revolutionary prototype website from the VA resulting from the VA’s recognizing its online customer experience is “… fragmented, frustrating and confusing.  Customers can’t find the information they need when they need it.”  The website attempts “… to deliver on providing useful information that’s clearly written and presented [and] provides tools that are easy to find and use.”  It is well worth the try and tends to use “steps logic” useful to your sorting out your situation.
  

• eBenefits Website:  The plethora of websites has become overwhelming, but this one is worth investigation.  The new eBenefits portal, a joint venture of DoD and VA, may be one of the best one-stop sites for both VA and DoD information currently available (and not these organizations alone).  It is meant to be “… a central location for Veterans, Service Members, and their families to research, find, access, and, in time, manage their benefits and personal information …” and stems from the President’s Commission on Care for America’s Returning Wounded Warriors (aka the Dole-Shalala Commission) circa 2007.   It can be used anonymously, but it does include the capability to register and then read or obtain personal documents, such as the DD Form 214.

• Federal Benefits for Veterans, Dependents, and Their Survivors Handbook: Still one of the of the best primers of benefits that exist, to include from other agencies. Prepared by the VA.

• Knowing About Your Benefits (The Handyman’s Guide): benefits.gov. Useful for about anything. A doublecheck for making sure you did not miss something from the VA or another agency (e.g., SSDI), or for finding benefit when you don’t qualify for VA care (e.g. again, SSDI). Gets down to state level.

• Another ‘All-Points’ Information Source for Federal and State Benefits: myarmybenefits.us.army.mil/EN/bfFedCat.aspx. Though an Army website, it has application to more than just Army servicemembers.

• Your Pennsylvania State and County Veterans Benefits: http://www.dmva.state.pa.us/portal/server.pt/community/veterans_affairs/7179. Do not forget to look at the educational, labor, and housing benefits.

• Knowing a Little More: The American Veterans and Service Members Survival Guide: How To Cut Through The Bureaucracy And Get What You Need — And Are Entitled To, by the Veterans for America, 2008.

Last Updated: 15 December 2017