Advance Health Care Directives and Living Wills in Calexico

Start with the decision you want the document to address

Before deciding what to change, identify the question you are trying to answer. Do you want written guidance about your health care, a person identified to make health-care decisions, or both? An advance health care directive can address wishes and identify a decision-maker, but those are distinct functions within the same planning discussion.

Treat the document as a way to communicate your preferences, not as a substitute for choosing someone whose role you understand. If you already have an agent and are reviewing only your treatment instructions, keep the discussion centered on what you want expressed. If choosing an agent is the central issue, that deserves its own focused conversation.

• Which preferences do you want recorded in writing?
• Are you reviewing written instructions, the person named to make decisions, or both?
• What would you want a person reading the directive to understand about your wishes?

Compare the documents by purpose

An advance health care directive concerns health-care wishes and health-care decision-making. A financial power of attorney has a different role: it concerns financial matters. Comparing documents by the decisions they address can help reveal whether a concern belongs in the health-care directive or in a separate financial-planning document.

For example, if you are worried about who could handle financial matters, changing health-care treatment instructions would not address that concern. Conversely, a financial power of attorney is not the document described as expressing health-care wishes. These documents may both matter to a broader plan, but they should not be treated as interchangeable.

• For each document, note whether its purpose is health-care wishes, health-care decisions, or financial matters.
• Separate questions about what should happen in health care from questions about who should handle financial decisions.

Gather what you already have before deciding on changes

A practical first step is to locate your current advance health care directive and any financial power of attorney you want to compare. Read them with a specific question in mind: does the health-care document communicate the preferences you want recorded, and are you clear about whether it also identifies someone to make decisions? This is preparation for a planning discussion, not a medical recommendation.

If you are unsure what a particular treatment choice means medically, ask an appropriate health-care professional. The legal-planning conversation can focus on how you want your preferences and decision-making arrangements expressed; it should not replace professional medical guidance.

• Bring the documents you want compared and mark any passages you do not understand.
• Write down the change you are considering and the concern behind it.
• Keep questions about medical consequences separate from questions about the document’s purpose.

Plan for access as well as preparation

Preparing a directive and keeping relevant documents accessible are separate from registering information about an executed directive. Consider who may need to find the document and how they would know where it is kept. Registration does not take the place of preparing the document or making it accessible to the people who may need it.

Codi M. Dada Law Office P.C. has one in-person office at 802 Grant Ave, Novato, California, and provides virtual services throughout California, including for people in Calexico. A useful next step is to gather your current documents and identify whether your priority is written treatment preferences, the person named to make health-care decisions, or both.