Advance Health Care Directives and Living Wills for Truckee Residents

Start with the question your document should answer

An advance health care directive can express your health-care wishes and identify someone to make health-care decisions. Those functions are related, but they address different questions: what instructions do you want communicated, and who may make decisions when a decision-maker is needed?

For this planning conversation, focus on your treatment preferences rather than assuming that naming a decision-maker alone explains what you would want. Consider which wishes you want written down and whether they are clear enough for another person to understand. This is a way to organize your preferences, not medical advice about which treatments to choose.

Clarify the instructions and the decision-making role

Before relying on a directive, separate the guidance you want recorded from the role of the person identified to make health-care decisions. Ask whether the document communicates your preferences and whether the person expected to act understands that role. If you want someone to make health-care decisions, identifying that person is different from writing treatment instructions.

A financial power of attorney has a different purpose: it serves a financial role, not the health-care role of an advance health care directive. A family should not assume that a document for financial decisions communicates health-care wishes or authorizes someone to make health-care decisions.

• What health-care wishes do you want expressed in writing?
• Do you also want the directive to identify someone to make health-care decisions?
• Are you relying on a financial power of attorney for a question that concerns health care?

Make the document usable when it may be needed

Preparing a directive and keeping it accessible are separate from registering information about an executed directive. A document that cannot be found may be difficult for the people who need to refer to it. Consider where you will keep it and which people should know how to locate it.

As a practical preparation step, write down the questions you want to resolve and the people who should know where to find your document. You can also note whether you have other planning documents and what each one is intended to do. These steps help organize a conversation; they do not replace the document or ensure that others will act as you expect.

• Identify where you plan to keep the directive.
• Consider who should know how to locate it.
• List questions about your written wishes and any decision-making role you want addressed.

A practical review before relying on your plan

A useful review begins with the document’s purpose: does it communicate your health-care wishes, identify someone to make health-care decisions if that is part of your plan, or both? Then consider whether the people who may need the document know where it is. If any of those points are unclear, identify the uncertainty rather than assuming that a different planning document fills the gap.

Codi M. Dada Law Office P.C. serves clients virtually throughout California from its in-person office at 802 Grant Ave, Novato, CA 94945. A next step is to arrange a planning discussion focused on your written treatment preferences, the role you want addressed, and how the document will be accessible to the people who may need it.