Advance Health Care Directives and Living Wills for Malibu Residents

Start with the decision you want the document to support

A useful first question is whether you want to record what care you would want, identify who may make health-care decisions, or do both. An advance health care directive can serve both purposes. Thinking about them separately can help you explain what you want the document to accomplish rather than treating the choice of an agent as a substitute for written preferences.

This page focuses on treatment preferences and making written instructions available. Choosing an agent involves a separate judgment about who should speak for you. If you are considering both, make sure you address each question rather than assuming that one answers the other.

• Written wishes: What health-care preferences would you want communicated if you could not communicate them yourself?
• Decision-making authority: Do you also want to identify someone to make health-care decisions?
• Access: Who should know where the relevant document is kept?

Keep health-care instructions separate from financial authority

An advance health care directive concerns health-care wishes and health-care decisions. A financial power of attorney has a different role: it concerns financial matters, not health-care instructions. Having financial authority addressed does not, by itself, document treatment preferences or identify a health-care decision-maker.

When reviewing your planning, ask what kind of decision each document is meant to address. If your goal is to communicate treatment preferences, focus on the health-care document. If you also want to address finances, recognize that this is a separate planning question.

Make the document useful by planning for access

Preparing a directive and making sure relevant people can locate it are separate practical steps. Consider where you intend to keep the document and which people may need to know how to find it. A document that is difficult to locate may be less useful to the people trying to understand your wishes.

As a preparation step, you can make a simple list of the people you want to tell where the document is kept and the questions you want to discuss about its contents. This is an organizational suggestion, not a legal requirement. The key practical issue is whether the people who may need the information can access it.

Understand what registry information does—and does not do

Keeping the directive accessible is not the same task as registering information about an executed directive. Registration is a separate way to record information; it should not be confused with preparing the document or deciding what health-care wishes it should express.

When considering registration, first clarify whether your immediate need is to create or review written instructions, tell relevant people where the document is, or register information about a directive that has already been executed. Identifying that need helps you choose the next question to address without treating registration as a replacement for the document itself.

Discuss your planning with Codi M. Dada Law Office P.C.

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 Malibu. To prepare for a conversation, consider whether you want to record health-care preferences, identify a decision-maker, or address both, and note where relevant documents are currently kept. These details can help focus the discussion on your priorities and the practical question of access.