Advance Health Care Directives in Durham, Butte County

Decide what you want your written instructions to communicate

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-wishes part of that planning: what you want recorded so others can understand your preferences. Selecting a decision-maker is a distinct issue, even though a directive can address both.

To prepare for a discussion, consider what preferences or concerns you want the document to communicate, and what questions you have about describing them clearly. These prompts can help you organize your thoughts; they do not determine which choices are right for you or predict how a future situation will unfold.

• Write down the preferences you want to communicate, in your own words.
• Keep questions about the document’s wording separate from the question of whom to identify as a decision-maker.
• Consider who may need to know that the document exists and where it is kept.

Know which planning question a document addresses

An advance health care directive addresses health-care wishes and may identify someone to make health-care decisions. A financial power of attorney serves a different role: it concerns financial decisions, rather than health-care choices. Keeping these purposes distinct can help you identify which planning question you are trying to address.

Written preferences communicate what you want known; they do not themselves settle every question that may arise in a future care situation. Likewise, this general legal information does not determine what treatment is appropriate for an individual. The useful planning task here is to clarify what you want the document to convey and how relevant information can be found.

Plan for access as well as content

A document is more useful to the people who may need it when they know how to locate it. As a practical preparation step, make a note of who should know where the relevant document is kept and what questions you have about access. This does not establish whether the document is complete; it addresses a separate, practical concern.

Preparing and keeping relevant documents accessible is different from registering information about an executed directive. California’s Secretary of State provides information about the advance health care directive registry. Registry information and the directive itself serve distinct practical purposes, so consider access separately from what you want the document to say.

• Bring any existing health-care planning documents you want to discuss.
• List people who may need to know where relevant documents can be found.
• Ask whether registry information may be useful in your circumstances, separately from preparing or updating a directive.

Keep this planning task separate from court logistics

The Butte County Superior Court has a resource about remote appearances in civil, probate, and family matters. That is general court information; it does not establish that a routine health-care directive must be filed with the court or determine the proper venue for any particular matter.

Durham is in Butte County, while the firm’s only physical office is in Novato. The firm offers virtual services throughout California. For this planning question, the county connection identifies the community’s location; it does not make preparing written health-care preferences a court proceeding.

Prepare for a focused planning discussion

A useful next step is to gather your questions, note the preferences you want communicated, and think about how people who may need the document could find it. You can then discuss how written wishes relate to the separate decision about identifying someone to make health-care decisions, and what practical access options you want to consider.

Codi M. Dada Law Office P.C. can discuss advance health-care planning virtually with Durham residents. This is general legal information, not an assessment of an individual’s medical circumstances or a determination of which preferences to choose.