Advance Health Care Directives and Living Wills for Tustin Residents

Start with the decision you want the document to support

A useful first question is whether you mainly want to record your own health-care wishes, identify someone to make health-care decisions, or address both. An advance health care directive can do both: express health-care wishes and identify a person to make decisions. Thinking about these purposes separately helps clarify what you want the document to communicate, without assuming that written treatment preferences and decision-making authority are interchangeable.

For example, you might want your preferences available to the people involved in your care while also identifying someone to make health-care decisions. That example is a planning prompt, not a recommendation about which treatment choices to make or whom to select. Consider what you want written instructions to convey and whether there is a separate person whose authority you want addressed.

• What health-care wishes do you want communicated in writing?
• Do you also want to identify someone to make health-care decisions?
• Who should be able to locate the relevant document when it is needed?

Keep health-care authority separate from financial authority

An advance health care directive concerns health-care wishes and health-care decisions. A financial power of attorney serves a different financial role. The distinction matters when deciding what question a document is meant to answer: authority concerning health care is not the same as authority concerning finances.

If your concern is who may handle financial matters, identify that as a separate planning question rather than treating health-care instructions as a substitute. Conversely, a document addressing financial authority does not, by itself, communicate health-care wishes or identify someone for health-care decisions. Keeping the roles clear can help you explain what you want each document to accomplish.

• Name the decision area you want to address: health care or finances.
• If both areas matter to you, treat them as distinct questions when organizing your planning.

Make the instructions findable, not just written

Written preferences can only inform the people who need them if the relevant document can be located. As a practical preparation step, decide where you will keep it and which people should know how to find it. You can also make a simple list of where the document is kept and whom you have told. This is an organizational suggestion, not a legal requirement.

Preparing and keeping the document accessible is different from registering information about an executed directive. The California Secretary of State offers an advance health care directive registry. Registration information and the directive itself are separate parts of planning: consider both where the document will be kept and whether you want information about an executed directive registered. Registration should not be confused with preparing the document or with making it accessible to the people you expect to consult it.

• Choose a location where the relevant document can be found.
• Tell appropriate people how to locate it.
• Consider separately whether to use the state registry for information about an executed directive.

Prepare for a focused planning conversation

Before a conversation with the firm, write down the health-care preferences you want to communicate and the questions you have about who may make health-care decisions. Note whether your concerns also involve financial authority, so that separate role is not mistaken for health-care decision-making authority. You may also want to identify the people you expect to be able to find the document and where you plan to keep it.

Codi M. Dada Law Office P.C. serves clients virtually throughout California from its Novato office. A focused next step is to discuss what you want the directive to address and how you plan to make its location known to the people who may need it.