Advance Health Care Directives and Living Wills for Davis Residents

Review the instructions before focusing on the form

An advance health care directive can express your health-care wishes and identify someone to make health-care decisions. This page focuses on the written instructions: whether they still communicate what matters to you and whether the people who may need them can find them.

A change in circumstances is a reason to take stock, not an automatic answer about what the document should say. Consider which parts of your existing instructions still fit and which parts you would want to discuss. The aim is to make your preferences understandable, rather than to assume that an old document still represents your choices.

Separate treatment preferences from choosing an agent

Written health-care wishes and the choice of a decision-maker are related, but they answer different questions. The directive can address both. If your concern is mainly that the person you previously identified may no longer be the right choice, treat that as a separate agent-selection issue. If your concern is what that person would need to know about your preferences, focus on the instructions.

Before discussing changes, identify which concern is driving your review. You might want clearer written preferences, a different person to make decisions, or a conversation about both. Keeping those questions distinct can help you describe the task without confusing health-care planning with financial authority.

Prepare for a focused review

Gather the directive you currently have and note, in your own words, what has changed since you prepared it. You could list instructions that still feel accurate, language that no longer reflects your preferences, and questions you want to resolve. This is preparation for a discussion, not a substitute for deciding what the document should say.

If you are unsure how to describe a preference, write down the question rather than trying to settle a medical issue through legal paperwork. Consider what you want a decision-maker to understand and what parts of the plan are unclear to you. No individualized medical recommendation is offered here.

• Bring the existing directive and any notes that help explain why it may no longer fit.
• Separate questions about written wishes from questions about who would make decisions.
• Identify who should know where the relevant document is kept.

Make the document findable

Preparing a directive and keeping relevant documents accessible are practical tasks distinct from registering information about an executed directive. Think through where the document is kept and how the people who may need it would learn where to find it. A document that cannot readily be located may be less useful when its instructions are needed.

Registration is not the same as preparing or storing the document itself. If you are considering a registry, keep that question separate from reviewing whether your written preferences still match your circumstances.

Keep health-care instructions distinct from financial planning

A financial power of attorney has a different role: it concerns financial decisions, not the health-care instructions described here. If your circumstances have changed in more than one area, identify which documents and decisions you want to discuss instead of treating one document as a substitute for another.

For a next step, gather the existing directive, prepare a brief list of what has changed, and decide whether your main question concerns the instructions, the decision-maker, or both. Codi M. Dada Law Office P.C. serves clients virtually throughout California from its in-person office in Novato.