Advance Health Care Directives and Living Wills in Maricopa

Start with the decision the document is meant to address

A useful first question is whether you want to record treatment preferences, give someone authority to make health-care decisions, or address both. An advance health care directive can do both: express your health-care wishes and identify a person to make decisions. Thinking about these functions separately can help you explain what you want the document to accomplish.

This page focuses on written treatment preferences and access to the document, rather than choosing or evaluating a health-care agent. If you are considering who should make decisions, that is a separate part of planning and deserves its own discussion.

• What health-care wishes do you want written down?
• Do you also want the directive to identify someone to make health-care decisions?
• Who should know where the document can be found?

Keep health-care instructions distinct from financial authority

An advance health care directive concerns health-care wishes and decisions. A financial power of attorney serves a different role: financial matters. The distinction matters when you are organizing documents or explaining who should be contacted. A document intended for financial authority should not be treated as a substitute for communicating health-care preferences.

Consider what kind of decision you are addressing before deciding which document or person should be involved. If the question concerns care or treatment, focus on the health-care directive. If it concerns finances, recognize that the financial power of attorney has a separate purpose. Questions about how particular documents interact should be discussed in the context of your own planning.

Make your preferences useful to the people who may need them

A written preference can help communicate what matters to you, but people can only refer to a document they know about and can locate. As a practical preparation step, identify where you intend to keep your directive and who should know how to find it. You may also want to note which questions about your preferences you would like to discuss with the person you identify to make health-care decisions.

Preparing and keeping relevant documents accessible is separate from registering information about an executed directive. Registration is not the same task as writing down preferences or making the document available to people who may need it. Consider which of those steps you are asking about before deciding what to do next.

• Gather any existing health-care directive or related planning documents.
• Write down the questions you want to resolve about your preferences and document access.
• Identify who should know where the directive is kept.

A practical way to prepare for a planning discussion

Before discussing a directive, bring the documents you already have, if available, and make a short list of the preferences you want the document to communicate. Separate questions about treatment instructions from questions about who may make decisions. This can keep the conversation focused without assuming that one document addresses every kind of authority.

Codi M. Dada Law Office P.C. has one in-person office in Novato and provides virtual services statewide, including for people in Maricopa. A next step is to discuss what you want your directive to communicate and how to make it accessible to the people who may need it.