Advance Health Care Directives and Living Wills in Alhambra

Separate instructions from decision-making authority

An advance health care directive can do two related but distinct things: express your health-care wishes and identify someone to make health-care decisions. Before choosing what to include, consider whether you mainly want to communicate preferences, name a decision-maker, or address both. The choice depends on what you want the document to accomplish; recording preferences does not itself answer every question that may arise in a future health-care situation.

This page focuses on documenting treatment preferences and making that information accessible. Choosing a person to act as your health-care decision-maker is a separate consideration. You can discuss whether your planning should address one function or both without treating written instructions and selecting an agent as interchangeable.

• Which wishes do you want to communicate in writing?
• Do you also want to identify someone to make health-care decisions?
• What would help the people involved locate and understand your document?

Understand what this document does—and does not do

An advance health care directive concerns health-care wishes and health-care decisions. A financial power of attorney serves a different role: it concerns financial matters. If your planning question involves financial authority rather than health-care preferences or decisions, clarify that distinction before deciding which document to discuss.

A written directive can communicate preferences, but it is not a substitute for a conversation about the choices you want it to express. Consider which points you want to make clear and which questions you want to raise with the relevant people. Questions about what treatment is medically appropriate are for qualified health-care professionals; document planning should not be treated as individualized medical advice.

• Identify whether your concern is health care, finances, or both.
• Prepare a short list of preferences or questions to discuss, without assuming a document resolves every future circumstance.

Plan for access as well as preparation

Preparing a document and keeping it accessible are practical parts of planning. A directive that people cannot locate may be less useful when they need to understand your wishes. Consider who may need access to the information and how you will let them know where the relevant document is kept.

California also provides a registry for information about an executed advance health care directive. Registering information about an executed directive is distinct from preparing the document and keeping it accessible. Treat these as separate steps to consider: a registry entry does not replace the underlying directive or your own plan for communicating where it can be found.

• Decide how you will communicate the document’s location to people who may need it.
• Consider whether registering information about an executed directive is useful for your circumstances.

Discuss the right scope for your plan

Codi M. Dada Law Office P.C. has one in-person office at 802 Grant Ave, Novato, California, and provides virtual services statewide, including for people in Alhambra. A planning discussion can help you clarify whether your priority is recording preferences, identifying a health-care decision-maker, or addressing both, and how you want the document to be made accessible.

Before that discussion, note the preferences you want considered, any questions about who should make decisions, and how you currently plan to share or store the document. These are preparation prompts, not legal requirements. The useful next step is to identify what you want the directive to communicate and discuss the scope of planning that fits that purpose.