How to Ask the VA for Financial Help: Payment Plans, Waivers, and Relief Options

The Department of Veterans Affairs is not trying to ruin your life. It just has a really unique talent for making it seem that way.

If you’ve opened an envelope from the VA and were surprised to discover that the VA can send you a bill, you’re not alone. A lot of veterans find themselves in surprise debt from the VA. These debts usually fall into one of two buckets: benefit overpayments (from disability compensation, pensions, or the GI Bill) and health care copay bills (from regular appointments, prescriptions, or community care). 

The good news is you don’t have to pay it all right at that moment. The VA offers a lot of pain management ways for veterans to pay what they owe. It offers payment plans, waivers, compromise offers, and even hardship options. You just have to ask the right way.

And you have to ask fast.

But before you do anything, confirm what kind of debt it is, who’s collecting it, and make sure the bill is accurate. Log in to your VA account. This is where you can review benefit overpayments and copay bills and find the right next step. It will also help veterans figure out the next step if they’ve been victims of a natural disaster. 

You know you’re in real trouble when the acronyms start to stack up. If the debt is a benefit overpayment, it’s handled through the VA’s Debt Management Center (DMC). If it’s a medical or prescription copay, you may be dealing with the Health Resource Center (HRC) and/or the Consolidated Patient Account Center (CPAC), depending on what you’re requesting. None of these are your local VA Medical Center (VAMC). 

Your local VA can answer questions, but it’s probably better to call the number on the VA’s debt management site.

At this point, it’s important to be aware of scams specifically targeting VA overpayment situations. Don’t try to fix a VA debt by giving money to a stranger who called you with their own sense of urgency. And always remember that the Department of Veterans Affairs is paid through Pay.gov, and it doesn’t accept gift cards. 

The Fastest Relief is Usually a Simple Payment Plan

If you can pay the debt, even if it’s not all at once, a repayment plan is often the cleanest way to stop the situation from getting worse. If you can pay back a benefit overpayment in fewer than five years, you can generally request a repayment plan without submitting a full Financial Status Report right away; if you need five years or more, you’ll need to submit VA Form 5655 (Financial Status Report).

For health care copay bills, the repayment plan is different. Veterans use VA Form 10-323 (Veteran Repayment Plan Agreement) and mail it to their CPAC (again: not the local clinic where you receive care).

There’s no shame in accidentally acquiring a VA debt. It happens so often, you’re reading an article about it. And there’s nothing overly invasive about the repayment plan process. When requesting a monthly repayment plan, you’re simply proposing a realistic monthly amount and then backing it up with your budget (if required).

When to Request a Waiver

As we used to say in the military, there’s a waiver for everything. For the VA, a waiver is the VA agreeing to forgive part or all of a debt. A waiver is an option when veterans can’t afford to repay the full balance, even with smaller monthly payments. But timing matters here, because the VA sets a few clocks.

To avoid late fees, interest, or other collection actions while the VA makes a waiver decision, you generally need to request a waiver within 30 days of receiving the first debt letter for education benefit overpayments or within 90 days for disability compensation or pension debts. 

Separately, the VA can only consider waiver requests within one year of receiving the first debt letter, and waiver requests received after that year must be denied. There’s no waiver for that waiver rule.

To request a waiver, the VA requires a VA Form 5655 and a personal statement explaining why you feel you shouldn’t have to repay the debt. You can also request an oral hearing. 

In practical terms, your statement should do three jobs: explain what happened, explain why repayment is unfair or would cause hardship, and explain what you’re requesting (full waiver or partial waiver).

Veterans who disagree with the outcome can appeal the decision and also request a hearing with the VA Board of Appeals. Those unhappy with the board’s decision can go to the Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims, then the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. They can even go all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court (if they’ll hear it).

But it’s probably best to take care of it at the lowest level, before it gets out of hand. Although you wouldn’t be the first veteran to take the VA to the Supreme Court.

The Compromise Option

A compromise offer is where you ask the VA to accept a lower, one-time amount as full payment of the debt. There’s no need to master “The Art of the Deal” here, either. A compromise uses the same process as everything else: submit VA Form 5655 and your explanation.

This option tends to work best when you can scrape together a lump sum from savings, family help, or a one-time windfall, and you want the debt resolved now instead of living with it for years.

Hardship Options for Copay Debt

The VA has a separate financial hardship assistance process for veterans who can’t afford current copay bills, especially after a job loss, a sudden income drop, or a spike in out-of-pocket health expenses. To avoid late charges (including interest and fees), you’ll need to take action within 30 days of receiving your copay bill.

For current copay debt, you can request debt relief (waiver or compromise offer) online, or you can submit (you guessed it) VA Form 5655 with a letter describing the financial issues making it hard to pay, and you can request a hearing in that letter.

For future copays, the VA has a hardship option that can lead to a copay exemption if your income has decreased and you can’t afford upcoming bills—but that request is a different form, a Request for Hardship Determination (VA Form 10-10HS). 

Note that this exemption doesn’t apply to pharmacy copays. 

Dispute Inaccurate Debts ASAP

This is the U.S. government we’re talking about: it’s far from infallible. Sometimes, VA debt is legit. Sometimes it’s a clerical error. Sometimes it’s mistaken identity. Sometimes it’s a hallucination. You have the right to dispute all or part of a benefit overpayment, and if you dispute within 30 days, you can avoid collection actions while the VA makes a decision on the dispute.

That “within 30 days” part is doing a lot of the heavy lifting for you. If you think the debt is wrong, don’t wait until you’ve emotionally processed it. Put the dispute in writing and get it submitted as soon as you can. Then process it emotionally.

VA systems reward clarity. When calling, writing, or submitting an online request, lead with the exact outcome you want, in plain language. You aren’t writing the great American novel; you’re trying to get a bureaucrat to agree with you. And they have to read hundreds of these. 

You’re aiming for something like: “I’m requesting a repayment plan,” or “I’m requesting a waiver,” or “I’m submitting a dispute,” or “I’m requesting hardship assistance for copays.” Then give the one-paragraph reason, followed by the numbers: what you can pay monthly, what your basic expenses are, and what would happen if VA starts withholding benefits or sending the debt to collections.

No matter what you decide to do, do it clearly and fast to prevent the VA’s bureaucracy from letting the debt snowball. The absolute worst thing anyone can do, however, is nothing. Bad news does not age like wine. 

If you get a VA benefit or disability debt and don’t set up a debt payment arrangement, the VA may withhold all or part of your monthly payments to pay down the debt.

And once a benefit debt becomes delinquent long enough, the VA has to refer eligible benefit debts to the federal government’s collection agency: the Treasury. Anything delinquent for more than 120 days is sent to the U.S. Treasury for collection, usually offset by non-VA government payments. That’s where tax refunds and other federal payments can get garnished.

None of this should scare veterans into panic-paying. Just move with a sense of urgency because acting early gives you the most options. Getting help from the VA doesn’t require some kind of divine ritual or sacrifice. It’s just a matter of paperwork, deadlines, specifying what you want, and (above all) time.