Advance Health Care Directives and Living Wills for Los Altos Residents
A written health-care directive can help communicate your treatment wishes, but it is not the same decision as choosing who may speak for you. Codi M. Dada Law Office P.C. has one in-person office in Novato and provides virtual services throughout California, including Los Altos.
Start with the purpose of written instructions
Consider this service if your main goal is to put your health-care preferences into a document that can be consulted when decisions arise. An advance health care directive can express health-care wishes and identify someone to make health-care decisions. Those are related functions, but they answer different questions: what care do you want, and who should make decisions?
A living-will discussion can focus on the first question: how to make your preferences understandable to others. Rather than treating the document as a substitute for conversation, consider what you would want the people involved in your care to understand about your priorities. Clear, considered instructions can give them a point of reference; they do not guarantee a particular treatment or outcome.
Separate treatment preferences from choosing an agent
If you already know the person you would want to make health-care decisions, that choice does not by itself explain your treatment preferences. If you have written preferences but have not decided who should make decisions, the two issues remain distinct. An advance health care directive can address both, but it is useful to consider each purpose on its own.
Before focusing on an agent, ask what you want the written instructions to communicate. Before focusing on instructions, ask whether identifying a decision-maker is also part of your goal. The appropriate emphasis depends on what you need the document to do. This page focuses on expressing health-care wishes, not on the separate process of selecting an agent.
Understand what this document does not replace
An advance health care directive is not a financial power of attorney. The latter serves a financial role, while the directive concerns health-care wishes and decisions. If your concern is who can handle financial matters, that is a different planning question; health-care instructions do not answer it.
Written preferences also have a practical limit: people who may need to refer to them must be able to find the relevant information. Preparing the document and keeping it accessible are distinct from registering information about an executed directive. Registration is not a substitute for making the actual document available to the people who may need it.
Prepare by identifying what you want understood
Before a planning conversation, consider writing down the subjects you want to address and the questions you want answered. For example, you might note which health-care preferences feel most important to communicate and whether you also want to address who could make decisions. This is a preparation aid, not a legal requirement.
Think about how the people who may need the document would know where to find it. You can also consider whether information about an executed directive should be registered, while keeping in mind that registration and access to the document itself are separate matters. A useful next step is to discuss whether your priority is written treatment preferences, selecting a decision-maker, or both, and what would make the instructions understandable and accessible.
Questions to discuss
Does an advance health care directive only record treatment preferences?
It can express health-care wishes and identify someone to make health-care decisions. These are separate purposes, so consider whether you want written preferences, a decision-maker, or both.
Is registering information about a directive the same as making the document accessible?
No. Preparing and keeping the relevant document accessible is distinct from registering information about an executed directive. Consider both how the document can be found and whether registration is something you want to address.
Official resources
General information, not an assessment of your documents or circumstances. Codi M. Dada Law Office P.C. has one office at 802 Grant Ave, Novato, CA 94945, and offers virtual services across California. A remote consultation does not itself authorize remote signing or a remote court appearance.
