Advance Health Care Directives and Living Wills in Marina

Separate your treatment wishes from the decision-maker role

An advance health care directive can serve two related but distinct purposes: express your health-care wishes and identify someone to make health-care decisions. If your immediate concern is how particular preferences should be recorded, make those preferences the focus of the discussion. Choosing a person to make decisions is a separate part of planning, even when both subjects appear in the same directive.

A financial power of attorney has a different role: it concerns financial decisions, not the health-care role of an advance directive. If you already have financial planning documents, bring their names or copies if you would like to clarify how they differ from the health-care document.

Prepare for a remote consultation

There is no need to arrive with polished legal language. A useful starting point is a plain-language account of what you want a health-care document to communicate, what feels uncertain, and which questions you want answered. These are preparation suggestions, not legal or medical requirements.

• Write down the preferences or concerns you want to discuss, using your own words.
• Note whether your main priority is recording treatment wishes, identifying a decision-maker, or addressing both topics.
• Gather any existing advance health care directive or other health-care planning document you can readily access, and note where the original or a copy is kept.
• Make a short list of questions about how the document’s instructions and decision-maker provisions fit together.
• If you want to discuss a financial power of attorney too, identify it as a separate financial document rather than treating it as a health-care directive.

Plan for access, not just preparation

Preparing a directive and keeping its information accessible are distinct from registering information about an executed directive. Consider who may need to locate the document and where you currently keep it; that practical inventory can help identify access questions to raise during the consultation.

Registration is not a substitute for preparing and keeping the relevant documents accessible. If you have questions about registry information, separate those from questions about what your written instructions should say. The California Secretary of State provides information about the Advance Health Care Directive Registry.

Discuss the document in the context of your wishes

Use the consultation to explain what you want the document to accomplish, what you have already prepared, and where you see unresolved questions. The aim is to distinguish your written preferences from the role of a person who may make health-care decisions, then consider how the document and access to it relate to your priorities. An advance health care directive addresses health care; a financial power of attorney serves a different financial role.

Codi M. Dada Law Office P.C. has one in-person office at 802 Grant Ave, Novato, California, and provides virtual services throughout California. For a remote consultation, having your notes and any existing documents nearby can make it easier to explain what you want to discuss.