Advance Health Care Directives and Living Wills for Colfax Residents

Separate your instructions from the decision-maker’s role

An advance health care directive can serve two related but distinct purposes: expressing your health-care wishes and identifying someone to make health-care decisions. Written instructions communicate what matters to you; naming someone identifies a person who may be called on to make decisions. Consider both questions when planning, rather than treating the appointment of an agent as a substitute for describing your preferences.

The person named in the directive has a health-care decision-making role. A financial power of attorney serves a different, financial role. Do not assume that a health-care appointment itself authorizes someone to manage finances, or that financial authority describes your treatment preferences. If you need to address both subjects, keep their purposes distinct as you discuss your planning.

• What health-care wishes do you want recorded?
• Who should be identified to make health-care decisions?
• Are you also trying to address financial decisions, which are a separate role?

Make your preferences useful to the people who may need them

A document can communicate your wishes only if the relevant people can find and refer to it. Think through who may need to know that it exists and where you intend to keep it. You can also decide whom to tell about its location. These are practical ways to make the document accessible, not a substitute for stating your preferences clearly.

When preparing to discuss the document, consider writing down the treatment preferences you want to address and any questions you have about expressing them. You might also note the people you want to inform about the document’s location. The purpose is to help you organize the conversation and make your instructions easier to communicate—not to create a new legal requirement.

• List the preferences you want to discuss in plain language.
• Consider who should know where the document is kept.
• Keep your health-care instructions separate from financial-planning questions.

Understand what the directive does—and what it does not address

An advance health care directive concerns health-care wishes and health-care decisions. It is not the same as a financial power of attorney, which has a separate financial role. A useful planning discussion therefore starts by identifying the task you want each document to address instead of assuming one document covers every kind of decision.

This distinction matters in practice: someone named for health-care decisions should not be presumed to have financial authority based on that role alone. Likewise, financial planning documents do not, by that fact alone, set out your treatment wishes. If your planning involves both areas, identify them separately so the documents and the people who may rely on them are not confused.

Plan for access as well as preparation

Preparing a directive and keeping it accessible are separate practical steps from registering information about an executed directive. Registration does not replace thinking through what your instructions say or making sure the appropriate people know where to look. Decide how you want to organize access and whom to inform as part of your planning.

A helpful next step is to bring your questions about treatment preferences, the person you may identify for health-care decisions, and document access to a planning conversation. Codi M. Dada Law Office P.C. can discuss these issues with clients virtually throughout California, including Colfax. The firm’s physical office is in Novato.