Advance Health Care Directives and Living Wills for Auburn Residents

Decide what you want the document to communicate

A useful starting point is to separate two purposes that can be part of an advance health care directive: putting health-care wishes in writing and identifying someone to make health-care decisions. If your main goal is communicating treatment preferences, consider what you want those written instructions to convey. If you also want to identify a decision-maker, treat that as a related but distinct choice.

This distinction can help shape a focused planning conversation. You do not have to treat the choice as either-or: the directive can address wishes and identify someone. The important question is whether the document reflects the purpose or purposes you intend, rather than assuming that naming a decision-maker alone communicates your preferences.

• Consider whether your priority is written health-care wishes, identifying a decision-maker, or both.
• If preferences are your focus, make a note of the subjects you want to discuss.

Keep health-care instructions distinct from financial authority

An advance health care directive and a financial power of attorney address different roles. The directive can express health-care wishes and identify someone to make health-care decisions; a financial power of attorney serves a financial role. One should not be treated as a substitute for the other.

If your concern is who may handle financial matters, that is a separate planning question from how health-care preferences are expressed. Keeping the questions distinct can help you identify what you want to discuss and avoid expecting a health-care document to serve a financial purpose.

Plan for people to find and use the information

Preparing a document and keeping it accessible are separate practical considerations. Think about who may need to know that it exists and where it is kept. A written directive can communicate wishes, but its usefulness to the people who may need to refer to it depends in part on making its location known and accessible.

Registration of information about an executed directive is also distinct from preparing the document and keeping it accessible. Consider these as separate questions: what you want documented, how relevant people can locate it, and whether you want to register information about an executed directive. Registration does not take the place of planning how the document itself will be found.

• As an optional preparation step, you may note who should know where the document is kept and what preferences you want to discuss.

Understand the practical limits before choosing help

An advance health care directive can express health-care wishes and identify someone to make health-care decisions. Those functions do not make the directive a financial power of attorney, and recording preferences does not by itself ensure that every person who may need the information knows where to find it.

Before deciding what assistance you need, identify the gap you want to address: written instructions, selection of a health-care decision-maker, accessibility of the document, or more than one of these. If your question is about financial authority, keep that separate from the health-care planning discussion.

Discuss your health-care planning priorities

For Auburn residents, Codi M. Dada Law Office P.C. offers virtual services throughout California from its Novato office. A practical next step is to describe the preferences you want documented and clarify whether you also want the directive to identify someone to make health-care decisions. You can also raise how the document will be kept accessible to the people who may need it.