Eldercare The Rules: Navigating the Legal, Financial, Medical, Housing and Care Maze

by Paula K. Almgren

Your parent is aging, getting up there in years, and all is fine―until it isn’t.

An unexpected fall, a life-changing diagnosis or a catastrophic event leaves them―along with concerned family members―scrambling for direction and the next best steps. Before you start tearing your hair out, learn the rules (many unwritten until now) needed to navigate the eldercare maze often riddled with confusing laws and regulations and frustratingly siloed systems. Get clued into essential dos and don’ts and valuable in-the-trenches information when confronted with legal, financial, medical, housing and care decisions. The rules will not only guide and educate you through important decision making for your elderly loved ones, but ultimately the decisions you will need to make in the future for yourself.

Rules for every angle whether you’re in crisis or planning
- Red flags to know from the get-go
- Getting a fix on financials fast and funding care for seniors
- Having the right legal documents for healthcare and financial decisions
- Choosing senior housing care options including aging in place at home, independent senior living communities, assisted living, nursing homes, continuing care retirement communities and low-income HUD housing plus questionnaires when scouting housing options
- Finding care and hiring caregivers with Visiting Nurse Associations (VNAs), home care agencies, private and family caregivers
- Senior driving and transportation of all kinds
- Steering clear of Medicare gaps and traps covering Original Medicare, Medigap, Medicare Advantage and Medicare Hospice plus safe discharges, durable medical equipment, physical therapy, occupational therapy, and more
- Assessing eligibility for Nursing Home Medicaid and Community Medicaid for individuals and married couples including protecting the home and other assets
- Tapping little known veteran and spousal benefits including the VA’s Pension with Aid and Attendance cash benefit for care
- Developing an estate plan including wills, trusts, tangible property, asset protection strategies, estate and inheritance taxes, funeral planning, passwords and safe deposit boxes plus helpful advice for staying out of probate court and beneficiary-directed accounts like IRAs.
- Knowing long-term care insurance options from triggering benefits to new hybrid policies combining life insurance with long-term care coverage
- Evaluating the latest in tech, trends, innovations and stuff for seniors from wearables and AI-fueled home monitoring to homesharing and virtual reality entertainment

339 pages, Kindle Edition

Published July 18, 2025

About the author

Berkshire Law Group founder PAULA K. ALMGREN is an attorney specializing in estate planning, elder law, and life care. She is also an accredited attorney with the Department of Veterans Affairs. Inspired by caring for her mom, her law practice is one of the few in the nation that combines estate planning and asset protection with care advocacy and coaching for seniors and their families. With 20+ years of experience, Paula has received a Super Lawyer designation five years and running, an honor given to less than five percent of attorneys in Massachusetts where she is licensed to practice in addition to New York. She is a graduate of Williams College and Albany Law School of Union University.

For more than a decade, Paula sat on the board of the National Academy of Elder Law Attorneys (NAELA), Massachusetts Chapter, and served as its President in 2020. She and her chapter peers have been instrumental in changing laws to benefit seniors, the disabled and veterans. She regularly contributes her insights and expertise to leading law forums and journals and is a state expert in leveraging community resources to help older people stay in their homes.