Advance Health Care Directives and Living Wills in Los Altos Hills

Separate treatment preferences from the decision-maker’s role

A directive can serve two related but distinct purposes: expressing health-care wishes and identifying someone to make health-care decisions. Written preferences communicate what matters to you; naming a person addresses who may make decisions. A family should not assume that identifying a decision-maker, by itself, explains the person’s treatment preferences.

Before relying on a document, clarify which of these purposes it addresses and whether the written wishes are understandable to the people expected to use them. This is a planning conversation, not a substitute for medical advice. A financial power of attorney has a different role: it concerns financial decisions rather than health-care decisions.

Make the instructions useful to the people who may need them

Start by identifying the preferences you want the document to convey. Consider what you want others to understand about your values and treatment wishes, and where you would want a family member to look for those instructions. These are practical preparation questions; they do not replace a conversation with a health-care professional about medical options.

Then check whether the people likely to be involved know that the document exists and how to locate it. Preparing a directive and keeping it accessible are separate practical steps from registering information about an executed directive. Registration information is not a substitute for making the relevant document available to those who may need it.

• Write down questions or preferences you want to discuss before preparing or reviewing your instructions.
• Decide who should know where the document is kept.
• Check that the people you expect to rely on it can locate the document when needed.

Check the document and any registration information separately

A useful family check is to ask two different questions: where is the directive itself, and is there registration information about it? Keeping those questions separate helps avoid relying on a registry entry as though it were the document containing the wishes. It also helps family members understand that locating information about a directive and accessing the directive are not the same task.

As a practical step, tell the people who may need the instructions where to look and confirm that they understand which document contains your health-care wishes. If preferences or family circumstances change, consider whether the instructions still communicate what you intend. The purpose is clarity and access, not a promise about a medical outcome.

Plan for the different jobs your documents do

Health-care instructions and financial authority should not be treated as interchangeable. An advance health care directive addresses health-care wishes and may identify a health-care decision-maker; a financial power of attorney serves a financial role. If your family is organizing both kinds of planning, label and store them so that the right document can be found for the right question.

A helpful next step is to gather any existing planning documents and note what you want clarified: the preferences expressed, the person identified to make health-care decisions, and how family members can access the directive. Codi M. Dada Law Office P.C. can discuss advance health care directives and living wills with Los Altos Hills residents through its statewide virtual service.