Advance Health Care Directives and Living Wills in Pico Rivera

Decide what you want the document to do

Start with the distinction between instructions and decision-making authority. An advance health care directive can express your health-care wishes, identify someone to make health-care decisions, or address both. If your immediate goal is to communicate treatment preferences, focus first on what you want documented. Choosing a person to make decisions is a separate question, even when the same directive can address both.

Consider whether you want your written instructions to speak for themselves or to accompany the choice of a decision-maker. A practical way to begin is to list the preferences you want to communicate and the questions you would want someone to understand if decisions need to be made. This helps clarify the document’s purpose without assuming that written instructions and selecting an agent are interchangeable.

• Which treatment preferences do you want recorded?
• Do you also want to identify someone to make health-care decisions?
• Would it help to address these purposes together, or to keep your focus on written instructions?

Keep health-care instructions separate from financial authority

A financial power of attorney has a different role: it concerns financial decisions, not health-care treatment preferences. If your planning also involves finances, do not treat a financial power of attorney as a substitute for an advance health care directive. Identify the decisions you want each document to address, then ask whether your planning reflects those different purposes.

For example, someone organizing paperwork might have questions about both medical treatment preferences and management of financial matters. The useful first step is to sort those concerns by subject, rather than assuming one document covers both. This distinction can help you explain what you want addressed when discussing planning options.

Make the information usable when it is needed

Creating a directive and making its information accessible are separate parts of planning. California court self-help materials distinguish preparing and keeping relevant documents accessible from registering information about an executed directive. Registration is therefore not the same task as making sure the relevant document can be found.

As a practical preparation step, decide where you will keep the directive information and who should know how to locate it. You can also note any questions about access or registration to discuss when considering your options. These steps help keep your focus on whether the people who may need the information can find it; they do not determine what treatment preferences you should choose.

Discuss the right scope for your plan

Before choosing this service, identify whether your main need is to document treatment wishes, select a health-care decision-maker, or consider both. If you are unsure, bring that uncertainty forward as a question rather than assuming that one purpose resolves the other. You can also ask how your preferences should be reflected in the planning documents and how to keep the resulting information accessible.

Codi M. Dada Law Office P.C. serves clients virtually throughout California from its in-person office in Novato. A useful next step is to organize the preferences and questions you want to discuss, then ask about the options for addressing them in an advance health care directive.