Advance Health Care Directives and Living Wills for Atherton Residents

Separate your written wishes from choosing an agent

An advance health care directive can serve two related purposes: expressing health-care wishes and identifying someone to make health-care decisions. They are connected in one document, but they are different questions. You may want to focus this consultation on the written instructions, while considering separately who you want to identify as an agent.

A financial power of attorney has a different role: it concerns financial matters, not health-care decisions. If you bring other planning documents to a consultation, identifying their purpose can help keep the conversation focused on the document you want to address.

Prepare for a focused remote consultation

Before meeting remotely, gather any existing advance health care directive or other document that states your health-care preferences. Make a short list of the points you want to discuss, including wording that feels unclear or preferences you want to communicate more plainly. These are preparation steps, not a required legal checklist.

It may also help to note who currently has a copy of any existing directive and who you would want to be able to locate it. If there is no existing document, you can still come prepared with questions and an outline of the preferences you want to discuss.

• Collect existing health-care documents you want to review.
• Write down questions about how to express your preferences.
• Note where existing copies are kept and who can access them.

Make treatment preferences understandable and findable

Use the consultation to explain what you want the written instructions to communicate, rather than relying on an informal conversation alone. You might identify situations or decisions that raise questions for you and ask how your preferences can be expressed clearly. This is a way to organize the discussion, not medical guidance about which treatment to choose.

Keeping relevant documents accessible is a separate practical consideration from preparing them. Consider which people may need to know where the document is kept and how they could locate it. A document that is difficult for the relevant people to find may not communicate your wishes when they need to consult it.

Understand the difference between a document and registry information

Preparing and keeping an advance health care directive accessible is distinct from registering information about an executed directive. The two should not be treated as the same step. If you have questions about registry information, raise them separately from questions about the wording of your health-care preferences.

A useful consultation outcome is a clearer understanding of what you want the directive to say, what questions remain, and how the relevant people can locate the document. Keep the discussion centered on your own preferences and the practical steps for making them available.