Advance Health Care Directives and Living Wills in Emeryville

First decide what you want the document to communicate

An advance health care directive can express your health-care wishes and identify someone to make health-care decisions. Those are related but distinct purposes. Before working on wording, consider whether your main aim is to record treatment preferences, name a decision-maker, or address both.

If you want to express preferences, think about the kinds of health-care choices you would want a person involved in your care to understand. The point of preparation is to make your own wishes clearer—not to substitute a general form or someone else’s assumptions for them. If you also want someone to make decisions, consider that choice separately: selecting a person and recording instructions answer different questions.

• What do you want others to know about your treatment preferences?
• Do you also want to identify someone to make health-care decisions?
• Are there parts of your wishes you would want to explain in your own words?

Use records to make your choices concrete

Preparation can begin with notes rather than legal language. You might write down questions or preferences you want to discuss, identify any existing health-care documents, and make a list of people who should know where your completed directive is kept. These are practical ways to organize your thinking; they are not legal requirements.

Keep the focus on making the relevant document findable by the people who may need it. A document that expresses your wishes is less useful to those people if they do not know it exists or cannot locate it. Consider where you keep important records and who should know how to find them. You can also consider whether the people you want to inform understand that written instructions and the role of a decision-maker are separate parts of planning.

• Gather any existing health-care planning documents so you can distinguish what is already recorded from what you still want to address.
• Make a private list of the people who should know where the directive is kept.
• Write down questions about unclear language or preferences to discuss during planning.

Keep health-care and financial roles separate

An advance health care directive concerns health-care wishes and health-care decisions. A financial power of attorney serves a different role: financial matters. One document should not be treated as a substitute for the other simply because both involve planning ahead. If your planning questions involve finances as well as health care, identify them separately so the purpose of each document remains clear.

Plan for access as well as preparation

Preparing a directive and keeping it accessible are distinct from registering information about an executed directive. The California Secretary of State offers an Advance Health Care Directive Registry process for information about an executed directive. Registration information is not the same thing as preparing the document or ensuring that the people who may need it can find it.

A practical next step is to decide who needs to know where your directive is stored and what questions you want answered about recording your preferences. Codi M. Dada Law Office P.C. can discuss your planning goals through virtual services for California residents. Bring your existing documents and notes about the choices you want to make so the discussion can focus on what you want your written instructions to convey.