Advance Health Care Directives and Living Wills in Westminster

Start with the question your document needs to answer

A useful first step is to ask whether your main concern is recording treatment preferences, naming someone to make health-care decisions, or addressing both. An advance health care directive can do both, but the two functions are not interchangeable. Written instructions communicate your wishes; naming a decision-maker identifies someone to make health-care decisions.

Think about what you want a person reading your directive to understand. You might prepare notes about the kinds of health-care choices you want reflected and the preferences you want to communicate. These notes are preparation for planning—not medical advice or a substitute for discussing medical questions with a qualified clinician.

• What preferences do you want to put in writing?
• Do you also want to identify someone to make health-care decisions?
• What would help that person understand the wishes you want recorded?

Separate health-care authority from financial authority

A financial power of attorney serves a different role from an advance health care directive: it concerns financial matters, while the directive can express health-care wishes and identify someone to make health-care decisions. The distinction matters when deciding which documents to discuss and where to look for authority over a particular kind of decision.

If your planning raises both health-care and financial questions, describe each one separately when seeking guidance. Do not assume that a person or document addressing one area automatically answers questions about the other. The practical next step depends on whether you are documenting health-care preferences, identifying a health-care decision-maker, or asking about financial authority.

• For a health-care question, identify the preferences or decision-making role at issue.
• For a financial question, distinguish it from the health-care role and ask about the relevant financial document.

Make the directive findable when it may be needed

Preparing a directive and keeping its information accessible are separate from registering information about an executed directive. The practical point is that recording preferences is only one part of planning: consider how the people who may need the document will know where to find it.

As a preparation step, make a simple list of where you keep relevant planning documents and which people should know how to locate them. This is an organizational suggestion, not a legal requirement. If you are considering registry information, distinguish that question from preparing the document itself.

• Note where you keep the directive and related planning documents.
• Consider who may need to know where the document is kept.
• Keep the question of registry information distinct from the question of what your directive should say.

Plan for your circumstances in Westminster

Codi M. Dada Law Office P.C. has one in-person office at 802 Grant Ave, Novato, California, and provides virtual services statewide, including in Westminster. A planning conversation can begin with the choices that remain open: what preferences you want to communicate, whether you want to identify a health-care decision-maker, and whether separate financial planning questions also need attention.

Before a conversation, you may find it useful to write down the questions you want answered and gather any planning documents you already have. The focus can then stay on the distinction that matters to your next step: written health-care wishes, selection of a person for health-care decisions, or a separate financial-authority question.