Advance Health Care Directives and Living Wills in Elk Grove

Start with the purpose of the document

A useful planning conversation begins with what you want the document to accomplish. You may want to express health-care wishes, identify a person to make health-care decisions, or address both. An advance health care directive can serve both purposes, but written preferences and the named person’s role should not be treated as interchangeable.

Consider what you want others to understand about your preferences and whether you want a particular person to make health-care decisions. Naming an agent does not itself describe all of your treatment preferences; written instructions can communicate those preferences rather than leaving them to be inferred. The relevant choices depend on your circumstances, so the document should reflect what you intend, not assumptions about what a typical person would choose.

• What health-care wishes do you want recorded?
• Who, if anyone, do you want identified to make health-care decisions?
• What would you want that person to understand about your preferences?

Separate health-care authority from financial authority

The person identified in an advance health care directive has a health-care decision-making role. That role is not the same as authority over finances. A financial power of attorney serves a different purpose, so naming someone for health-care decisions does not, by itself, give that person financial authority.

This distinction matters when you are organizing documents and deciding what responsibilities you want to assign. Ask separately who should be involved in health-care decisions and who should have financial authority. Do not assume that one document, or one person named in it, covers both roles.

• Keep the health-care decision-making role distinct from financial responsibilities.
• If you want to address financial authority, consider that separately through a financial power of attorney.

Make your wishes findable

A document can only help communicate your preferences if the relevant people can locate it when needed. As a practical preparation step, think about where you will keep the directive and who should know how to find it. You can also prepare a simple list of the people who should know its location and the questions you want to discuss with them.

Preparing and keeping the document accessible is different from registering information about an executed directive. Registration is not the same task as creating the document or making a copy available to the people who may need it. Consider these as separate parts of your planning rather than assuming that one automatically completes the others.

• Decide where the document will be kept.
• Identify who should know where it is.
• List questions about your wishes and the decision-making role you want to assign.

Clarify what the directive does—and does not—address

An advance health care directive addresses health-care wishes and may identify someone to make health-care decisions. It does not serve as a financial power of attorney. If your planning question concerns money or other financial responsibilities, that is a separate authority to consider rather than something to assume is included in health-care instructions.

The document is a way to communicate preferences and identify a health-care decision-maker; it is not a substitute for discussing what you want with the people who may need to understand those preferences. A practical next step is to gather the questions you want answered, consider the responsibilities you intend to assign, and discuss how to keep the resulting document accessible.