Advance Health Care Directives and Living Wills for Santa Clarita Residents
An advance health care directive can record your health-care wishes and identify someone to make health-care decisions. Consider both questions separately: what guidance do you want documented, and who may need to act on it? Codi M. Dada Law Office P.C. has one in-person office in Novato and provides virtual services throughout California.
Start with the purpose of the document
A directive can serve two related but distinct purposes: expressing your health-care wishes and identifying someone to make health-care decisions. If your main concern is treatment preferences, focus on what you want the written instructions to communicate. If your concern is who would make decisions, focus on the person you identify and whether the document addresses that role.
Keeping these questions distinct can make the planning conversation more useful. Written preferences communicate guidance; identifying a decision-maker addresses who may make decisions. One concern does not automatically answer the other.
Which authority question changes the next step?
Ask whether the matter you are trying to plan for is health care or finances. An advance health care directive concerns health-care wishes and decisions. A financial power of attorney serves a different financial role; it is not a substitute for health-care instructions.
For example, if your concern is who could address a financial matter, clarify that before treating a health-care directive as the answer. If your concern is communicating health-care preferences, focus on the directive and the people who may need to know where to find it. These are examples of questions to discuss, not individual legal advice.
Make your preferences practical to use
A document can only communicate its contents to people who can access it. Preparing the relevant document and keeping it accessible are practical parts of planning, distinct from registering information about an executed directive. Registration is not the same thing as preparing or keeping the directive available.
Before a planning discussion, you may find it helpful to note the preferences you want to communicate and identify the people who may need to know where the document is kept. This is a preparation suggestion, not a legal requirement. Consider how you would share the document’s location with the person you identify and others who may need to find it.
Keep the planning conversation focused
Bring the central questions into the discussion: What health-care wishes do you want written down? Who, if anyone, do you want identified to make health-care decisions? Is your concern instead about financial authority? Clarifying the subject helps keep health-care instructions separate from financial planning and makes it easier to identify what you want the document to accomplish.
Codi M. Dada Law Office P.C. offers virtual services throughout California. A next step is to discuss your health-care preferences, the role you want an identified person to have, and how you plan to make the document accessible to the people who may need it.
Questions to discuss
Does an advance health care directive express wishes, identify a decision-maker, or both?
It can express health-care wishes and identify someone to make health-care decisions. Consider what guidance you want recorded and who you want identified as separate planning questions.
Is a financial power of attorney the same as an advance health care directive?
No. A financial power of attorney serves a financial role, while an advance health care directive addresses health-care wishes and decision-making. Which document is relevant depends on whether the authority concern is financial or health-care related.
Official resources
General information, not an assessment of your documents or circumstances. Codi M. Dada Law Office P.C. has one office at 802 Grant Ave, Novato, CA 94945, and offers virtual services across California. A remote consultation does not itself authorize remote signing or a remote court appearance.
