Advance Health Care Directives and Living Wills in Desert Hot Springs

Separate your instructions from your choice of decision-maker

When planning for future health-care decisions, consider two questions separately: What wishes do you want the document to communicate, and whom do you want to identify to make health-care decisions? An advance health care directive can address both by expressing health-care wishes and naming someone to make decisions. Treating these as distinct choices can make it easier to review whether the document reflects your preferences and clearly identifies the person you have in mind.

This page focuses on communicating treatment preferences and making the document accessible. Choosing an agent is a separate decision; the important point here is to understand that the directive can include both written wishes and an identified decision-maker.

• Written instructions communicate health-care wishes.
• Naming someone identifies a person to make health-care decisions.
• Consider whether you want to address both functions in your planning.

Think about what you want the document to communicate

Start by considering the preferences you want to put in writing. An advance health care directive can express health-care wishes, so the practical question is whether the instructions you want to share are clear enough to communicate your preferences to the people who may need to refer to them. This is a planning exercise, not a medical recommendation: decisions about what care is appropriate are medical matters to discuss with qualified health-care professionals.

You might make a private list of questions or topics you want to discuss with your health-care providers, then use that conversation to consider what preferences you want reflected in your document. The purpose of that preparation is to help you organize what you want to communicate; it does not create additional legal requirements.

• Identify the preferences you want to communicate in writing.
• Consider whether your instructions and your choice of decision-maker address separate needs.
• Prepare questions for your health-care providers if you want help understanding medical choices.

Understand who handles health-care and financial decisions

The person identified in an advance health care directive may make health-care decisions. That role is not the same as authority over financial matters. A financial power of attorney serves a different financial role, so naming a health-care decision-maker does not, by itself, address the separate question of who may handle financial decisions.

As you plan, ask which responsibilities you want to address and whether they call for a health-care directive, a financial power of attorney, or both. The documents have different purposes; do not assume that one fills the role of the other. If you are unsure which responsibilities your existing documents address, reviewing them in light of those distinct purposes can help identify what questions remain.

• Health-care decisions and financial matters are different responsibilities.
• A financial power of attorney serves a financial role distinct from an advance health care directive.

Make the document available to people who may need it

Preparing a directive and keeping the relevant documents accessible are practical steps distinct from registering information about an executed directive. Consider how the people who may need to refer to your wishes or decision-maker would know where the document is kept. Accessibility matters because a document that cannot be located may not be available when someone needs to consult it.

Registration is a separate consideration from preparing and keeping the document accessible. If you are considering registration, treat it as a question about information associated with an executed directive—not as a substitute for keeping the document available to the people who may need it.

• Decide where the document will be kept.
• Consider who may need to know how to locate it.
• Keep document preparation, accessibility, and registration as separate planning steps.

Plan around the responsibilities you want addressed

A useful next step is to review the decisions you want addressed, separate health-care preferences from financial responsibilities, and note any questions about the person you may identify to make health-care decisions. Codi M. Dada Law Office P.C. offers virtual services throughout California from its Novato office. A conversation about your planning goals can help you identify which responsibilities you want your documents to address and what questions you still need to resolve.