Advance Health Care Directives and Living Wills in Sunnyvale

Start with the wishes you want in writing

An advance health care directive can express health-care wishes. Before relying on a document, consider what you want it to communicate in terms that the people who may need it can understand. Focus on the preferences you want recorded and any context you want those people to know. The aim is to make your wishes clear, not to assume that a document’s label alone explains what it says.

Written instructions and the identification of a person to make health-care decisions are related functions, but they address different questions. You can think about them separately: first, what wishes do you want expressed; second, who do you want identified to make decisions? This page focuses on communicating preferences, rather than choosing or evaluating a particular agent.

A useful preparation step is to write down topics you want to clarify before discussing or updating a directive. You might note which preferences feel settled, which need more thought, and what background would help someone understand them. These are optional prompts for organizing your conversation, not legal or medical requirements.

• What health-care wishes do you want the document to express?
• What values or context would help others understand those wishes?
• Are there preferences you still want to discuss before putting them in writing?

Keep instructions distinct from the decision-maker question

An advance health care directive can both express health-care wishes and identify someone to make health-care decisions. Do not treat those functions as interchangeable: written preferences communicate what matters to you, while identifying someone addresses who may make decisions. A document may address both, but your planning conversation can still examine each purpose on its own.

If you have already identified someone, consider whether that person understands the wishes you want expressed. If you have not settled that choice, you can still organize your preferences as a separate step. The practical question here is not who should be selected; it is whether the instructions you want recorded are clear and how the relevant people will be able to find them.

• Review the preferences you want expressed independently from the question of who may make decisions.
• Consider what you want the identified person and other relevant people to understand about your wishes.
• Note any questions that should be addressed before you rely on the document.

Plan how the document can be found

Preparing and keeping the relevant document accessible is distinct from registering information about an executed directive. Registration information and the directive itself are not the same thing. For a family, that distinction has a practical consequence: information about a document does not, by itself, put the document in the hands of someone who needs to read its instructions.

As an optional preparation step, decide where you intend to keep the directive and tell appropriate people how to locate it. You may also want to note who knows where it is. If you choose to register information about an executed directive, consider separately how the relevant people can access the document itself. These steps address practical access; they do not determine whether a document is legally effective.

• Choose a location where the document can be located when needed.
• Consider who should know where it is kept.
• Keep the document itself distinct from any information registered about it.

Do not confuse health-care instructions with financial authority

A financial power of attorney serves a different financial role from an advance health care directive. Having a document for financial matters does not, by itself, tell family members what health-care wishes you want expressed. Likewise, health-care instructions should not be treated as a substitute for financial authority.

For example, someone reviewing a group of planning papers might find a directive and a financial power of attorney together. The useful question is which document addresses the matter at hand, rather than assuming one document covers both health-care preferences and financial decisions. If the purpose of a document is unclear, make that a question for a planning discussion instead of relying on its title.

Prepare for a focused planning discussion

Before a conversation about your directive, you may gather any existing planning documents and make a short list of the preferences you want to express, the questions you have, and who should know how to locate the document. If you have already discussed your wishes with family, note what remains unclear. This preparation is optional; it is intended to make the discussion more focused, not to satisfy a legal prerequisite.

Codi M. Dada Law Office P.C. serves clients virtually throughout California from its Novato office. A focused discussion can help you organize the health-care wishes you want expressed and consider the practical distinction between the document, information registered about it, and financial planning papers.