Advance Health Care Directives in Mountain Mesa, Kern County

Separate your treatment preferences from the choice of a decision-maker

An advance health care directive can express health-care wishes and identify someone to make health-care decisions. Those functions may appear in the same document, but they answer different questions: what care do you want, and who should make decisions when you cannot communicate them? This page focuses on the first question and on making written preferences available; selecting an appropriate health-care agent deserves its own consideration.

A financial power of attorney has a different role: it concerns financial decisions, not health-care decisions. If a family is reviewing several planning documents together, it is useful to identify what each document is meant to address rather than assuming one document covers every kind of decision.

• Use written instructions to describe the health-care wishes you want recorded.
• Treat the selection of a person to make health-care decisions as a separate decision to consider.
• Do not confuse health-care planning with financial authority.

Clarify what the document is meant to communicate

Before relying on written preferences, consider what you want the document to communicate and whether the people who may need it will be able to locate it. These are practical preparation questions, not a substitute for medical advice or a prediction about what treatment will be appropriate in a particular situation.

It can help to discuss the document’s purpose with the people you expect may refer to it. For example, a family might ask whether the written instructions are easy to find and whether everyone understands that the document records health-care wishes, while the choice of a decision-maker is a distinct matter. This is a hypothetical planning example, not a statement about any particular family.

• What preferences do you want recorded in writing?
• Who should know where the document is kept?
• Have you made clear that financial authority and health-care instructions serve different purposes?

Make accessibility part of the plan

Preparing and keeping relevant documents accessible is distinct from registering information about an executed advance health care directive. Registration does not replace the practical task of ensuring that the people who may need the document know how to find it.

As a preparation step, decide where the document will be kept and tell the relevant people how to access it. You can also make a simple inventory of the planning documents you have and note the purpose of each. These steps support access and clarity; they do not establish whether a document is legally valid or resolve what care is suitable for you.

• Keep the relevant document where it can be located when needed.
• Tell the appropriate people where it is kept.
• Distinguish keeping the document accessible from registering information about it.

Get help reviewing your planning questions

A useful next step is to gather the documents you already have and write down what you want the health-care instructions to address, who needs to know where they are, and any questions about how the documents relate to one another. A discussion can then focus on the purpose and accessibility of the written instructions without treating that review as medical advice.

Codi M. Dada Law Office P.C. has one physical office at 802 Grant Ave, Novato, and provides virtual services throughout California, including Mountain Mesa. The firm does not have a Mountain Mesa branch. You may contact the office to discuss whether help with advance health care directives and living wills fits your planning needs.