Advance Health Care Directives and Living Wills for Irwindale Residents

Start with the distinction: instructions and a decision-maker

An advance health care directive can serve two related purposes: expressing your health-care wishes and identifying someone to make health-care decisions. Those functions are connected, but they are not the same choice. Written preferences communicate what matters to you; naming someone addresses who may make decisions when needed.

This page focuses on documenting treatment preferences and making the document accessible. If your main question is whom to select as your health-care agent, that deserves a separate conversation. A financial power of attorney has a different role: it concerns financial decisions, not health-care decisions.

Collect your thoughts before a remote consultation

There is no need to arrive with polished legal language. A useful starting point is a short list of the preferences or concerns you want to discuss. Use your own words, and note where you are certain, where you have questions, and where you would like help clarifying your intentions.

You can also gather any existing advance health care directive or other relevant planning documents you would like to discuss. If you do not have a copy, note what you know about it and where someone might look for it. These are preparation suggestions, not a list of legal prerequisites.

• Write down the treatment preferences or values you want to communicate, along with questions about how to express them.
• Consider who should know that a directive exists and where a copy could be found.
• Bring any existing directive you have available and identify passages or choices you want to revisit.
• Make a separate note of questions about selecting a health-care decision-maker; do not confuse that choice with the financial role of a power of attorney.

Make the document useful to the people who may need it

Preparing a directive and keeping it accessible are distinct from registering information about an executed directive. In practical terms, a document that cannot be located may be harder for the people who need to consult it to use. Think through who should know where your document is kept and how they could access it.

You can discuss whether registering information about an executed directive is relevant to your situation. Registration is a separate consideration from preparing the document and making copies or location information available to the people who may need them.

A focused next step for Irwindale residents

For a consultation, bring your notes, any existing directive you can locate, and the questions you want answered. A useful discussion can separate three topics: what your written preferences should communicate, who should know where the document is, and whether you also want to address the selection of a health-care decision-maker.

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 Irwindale residents.