Advance Health Care Directives and Living Wills for Rio Dell Residents

Start with the question that changes the next step

Consider whether your main concern is making treatment preferences known, identifying a person to make health-care decisions, or addressing both. An advance health care directive can cover both wishes and decision-making authority, but thinking about each purpose separately can clarify what you want the document to accomplish.

Ask yourself: if you could not communicate a preference, would a written statement of your wishes be the help you want to provide? Is there also someone you want identified to make health-care decisions? These are planning questions, not medical recommendations. This page focuses on documenting preferences and making the information accessible, rather than choosing an agent.

• Write down the health-care preferences you want to communicate.
• Separately consider whether identifying someone to make health-care decisions is part of your plan.
• If you have both goals, keep clear in your own notes which passages express wishes and which address decision-making authority.

Keep health-care wishes separate from financial authority

A health-care directive addresses health-care wishes and may identify someone to make health-care decisions. A financial power of attorney has a different role: it concerns financial matters. Naming someone for one purpose should not be treated as addressing the other.

This distinction can help when reviewing existing documents. Ask what each document is intended to cover, and whether your health-care preferences are actually recorded where the people involved can find them. If your concern is paying bills or managing financial affairs, that is a separate planning question from expressing treatment preferences.

• Identify whether the document you are reviewing concerns health-care decisions or financial matters.
• Note any preference you want to discuss that is not clearly expressed in your current planning documents.

Make the information usable when it is needed

Preparing a directive and keeping it accessible are separate practical steps from registering information about an executed directive. Registration is not a substitute for having the relevant document available to the people who may need it.

As a preparation step, consider who should know where your health-care wishes are kept and how they could access them. You can also make a list of any existing health-care or financial documents to discuss. The aim is to reduce uncertainty about where information is—not to assume that a registry contains the document itself or communicates your preferences.

• Make a private list of existing documents and where you keep them.
• Consider which people may need to know where the directive can be found.
• Keep the question of registration distinct from the question of access to the document.

Discuss your planning from Rio Dell

Codi M. Dada Law Office P.C. has one in-person office at 802 Grant Ave, Novato, CA 94945, and provides virtual services statewide, including for people in Rio Dell. A useful first discussion can focus on what you want written down, whether you also want to identify a health-care decision-maker, and how your existing documents fit those goals.

Bring your questions and, if convenient, a list of documents you already have. The next step is to clarify the purpose each document should serve and what you want people to be able to find when health-care decisions arise.