Advance Health Care Directives and Living Wills for Hidden Hills Residents

Start with the decision: wishes, authority, or both?

An advance health care directive can express your health-care wishes and identify someone to make health-care decisions. Those functions answer separate questions: what preferences should be communicated, and who may make decisions for you. A document that states preferences does not eliminate the importance of considering who will communicate or apply them.

A financial power of attorney has a different role: it concerns financial decisions, not health-care decision-making. If the uncertainty is about who can handle a financial matter, that is a different planning question from recording treatment preferences. If it is about care, focus on the directive and the choices it records.

• If you mainly want your preferences known, identify the wishes you want written down.
• If you want another person to make health-care decisions, consider the directive’s agent-selection function separately from the preference statements.
• If the concern involves finances, do not assume a health-care directive addresses it; a financial power of attorney serves a different purpose.

Make preferences understandable and practical

Before discussing a document, consider the kinds of health-care choices you want your written wishes to address and how you would explain what matters to you. Keep the focus on communicating preferences in your own terms, rather than trying to predict every future circumstance. This is a planning conversation, not a substitute for medical advice.

It may help to note questions you want to discuss and identify the people who should know where your directive is kept. A practical preparation step is to make a simple list of people to notify and locations where relevant paperwork can be found. The purpose is accessibility; it is not a legal requirement.

Plan for access, not just completion

Preparing a directive and keeping it accessible to the people who may need it are distinct from registering information about an executed directive. Consider who should know where the document is stored and how they could locate it if your preferences need to be consulted. A document that cannot readily be found may be less useful to the people trying to understand your wishes.

Registration is not the same as preparing or storing the directive itself. When considering what to do next, separate the questions: have you recorded the information you want communicated, can the relevant people find it, and do you want to register information about an executed directive?

Discuss the right planning question

A focused conversation can begin with the issue that prompted you to plan: recording treatment preferences, identifying someone for health-care decisions, or ensuring relevant people can locate the document. If your concern is actually financial authority, say so at the outset because that calls for a different document and purpose.

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 Hidden Hills. You can use a conversation with the firm to clarify which planning question you are addressing and what information you want the document to communicate.