Advance Health Care Directives and Living Wills in Ontario, California

Separate your written wishes from the choice of a decision maker

Start with the message you want your directive to convey. An advance health care directive can express health-care wishes, identify someone to make health-care decisions, or address both functions. Thinking of these as separate choices helps you decide what information you want recorded and what role you want another person to have.

For example, you may want to write down preferences and also identify someone to make health-care decisions. Or you may want to focus first on explaining your wishes. These are planning questions, not a substitute for discussing treatment with a qualified health-care professional. The purpose here is to make your preferences and the role you have in mind easier to consider together.

• What health-care wishes do you want the directive to express?
• Do you want to identify someone to make health-care decisions?
• What would help that person understand the preferences you want communicated?

Understand what the named person’s role does—and does not—address

The health-care decision-making function is distinct from financial authority. A financial power of attorney serves a different financial role; identifying someone in an advance health care directive does not itself address that separate role. If you are considering both health-care and financial decision-making, treat them as separate planning topics rather than assuming one designation covers both.

A useful question to consider is whether the responsibility you have in mind is about health-care decisions, financial matters, or both. If it involves both, identify the separate issues you want to discuss. This keeps the focus on the authority each document is meant to address, without assuming that one person’s role automatically extends beyond the document’s purpose.

Make the directive and its location easy to communicate

A practical preparation step is to decide where you plan to keep the relevant document and whom you want to tell about its location. You can also make a short, optional list of the preferences you want to discuss, using words that reflect your own priorities. These steps do not determine what the directive should say; they help you prepare to communicate what matters to you.

Preparing and keeping the document accessible is different from registering information about an executed directive. Registration concerns information about a directive; it is not the same task as deciding what wishes to express or making sure relevant people know where the document is kept. Consider how you want to share its location and how you will communicate if your preferences or plans change.

• Note where you intend to keep the document.
• Consider whom you want to tell how to find it.
• Write down questions about the preferences and decision-making role you want to address.

Prepare for a focused planning conversation

Before discussing an advance health care directive, consider bringing your questions about written wishes, whether to identify a decision maker, and how you want the document’s location communicated. If financial authority is also on your mind, identify it as a separate issue. This approach helps keep health-care preferences distinct from financial planning and focuses the discussion on the responsibilities you actually want to address.

Codi M. Dada Law Office P.C. has one in-person office at 802 Grant Ave in Novato and provides virtual services throughout California, including Ontario. A practical next step is to organize your questions around the directive’s two functions—expressing wishes and identifying someone to make health-care decisions—then note any separate financial-authority questions you want to raise.