Advance Health Care Directives in North Shore, Riverside County

Begin with the decision about your instructions

The first decision is what you want written down about health care. An advance health care directive can express health-care wishes; it can also identify a person to make health-care decisions. Those are related but distinct functions. You can focus first on the instructions you want recorded rather than treating the choice of a decision-maker as the same question.

A financial power of attorney serves a different role: it concerns financial decisions, not the health-care instructions described in an advance health care directive. Keeping those purposes separate can help you identify which document or planning conversation addresses your current concern.

Use your existing records to make preferences concrete

Before discussing written instructions, gather any existing advance health care directive and note where you keep it. If you have an earlier version, having it available can help you identify which preferences you want to revisit. The goal is to distinguish what you already recorded from what you now want the document to say.

You might prepare a private list of questions about the kinds of care or circumstances you want to address, along with any terms or passages in an existing document that are unclear to you. This is a way to organize your discussion, not a medical recommendation. For questions about what particular treatment may mean for you, speak with an appropriate health-care professional.

• Bring or identify any existing advance health care directive and any notes you have about the preferences you want to communicate.
• Mark passages you want clarified or reconsidered, rather than assuming an older document reflects your current wishes.
• Keep the discussion centered on your instructions; choosing a person to make decisions is a separate planning question.

Think about availability as well as wording

Writing down preferences is only part of practical planning. Consider who may need to locate the directive and what information would help them find it. California court self-help information distinguishes preparing and keeping relevant documents accessible from registering information about an executed directive. Registration information is not a substitute for preparing the document or making its location known.

As a preparation step, you can make a simple record of where the directive is kept and whom you have told about its location. If you are considering registration, check the California Secretary of State’s current registry information. This page does not provide instructions on completing, witnessing, notarizing, or executing a directive.

Get help focused on your planning question

A useful next step is to discuss the preferences you want recorded, how an existing directive fits your current wishes, and whether you also want to consider naming a health-care decision-maker. Those questions can be addressed separately so the instructions do not get lost in a broader conversation about who may act for you.

North Shore is an unincorporated community, not a Codi M. Dada Law Office P.C. branch location. The firm has one physical office at 802 Grant Ave, Novato, and provides virtual services throughout California. Health-care planning is a personal matter; general information cannot determine which treatment choices are right for you.