My MIL was moved to an assisted care facility in October 2013 and applied for assistance at the same time. She cashed in her life insurance and has used all of her savings and has 2-3 months left of the life insurance money. If that runs out before VA assistance is approved she will not have enough money to stay where she is at. Her RR Retirement is not enough to cover the monthly fee and we do not have the money to help supplement. We barely make ends meet now. She received a 2nd letter 1/24/14 stating the claim was still in process.
There is no rhyme or reason for how long it takes the Government to accept your family member. There could be two identical applications and one could take a few months the other over a year.
Something you can do to speed up the process is contact your state senators and representatives by email and letter. This almost always increases the speed of acceptance. In my experience by submitting the letter, it takes around 4 months.
You can read more about this here:
minutewomeninc/ultimate-veterans-aid-and-attendance-guide/