Advance Health Care Directives in Richfield, Tehama County

Start with the decisions you want documented

An advance health care directive can express your health-care wishes and identify someone to make health-care decisions. Those are related but distinct functions: written instructions communicate preferences, while naming a decision-maker identifies a person who may act on health-care decisions.

Before relying on a document, consider what you want it to say about treatment and what you want a decision-maker to understand. The goal is not to predict every possible medical situation. It is to make your preferences clear enough to guide conversations when you may not be able to communicate them yourself.

• Which health-care preferences do you want recorded in writing?
• What context or values would help someone understand those preferences?
• Are there choices you want to discuss with the person you have named to make health-care decisions?

Keep instructions distinct from financial authority

A health-care directive is not a substitute for financial planning. A financial power of attorney serves a different role: it concerns financial matters, rather than communicating health-care wishes or assigning health-care decision-making authority.

If you are reviewing several planning documents together, check that each one addresses the purpose you intend. A document concerning finances should not be treated as the place to record health-care preferences, and a health-care directive should not be relied on to handle financial decisions.

• Identify which document addresses health-care wishes.
• Separately identify any document intended to address financial matters.
• Ask whether the people who may need each document will know which one to consult.

Make the document findable when it matters

Preparing and keeping relevant documents accessible are practical steps separate from registering information about an executed advance health care directive. Registration does not replace having the document itself available to the people who may need it.

As a preparation step, decide where the current document will be kept and who should know how to locate it. You can also make a simple list of the planning documents you have and where each is stored. These steps help you identify whether your arrangements are understandable and accessible; they do not establish any particular legal execution requirement.

• Choose a consistent place for the current directive.
• Tell appropriate people where the document can be found.
• If you use the state registry, distinguish registering information about an executed directive from preparing and keeping the document accessible.

Review the arrangement as a whole

A useful review asks both what the document communicates and whether the people who may need it can locate it. If your written wishes and your choice of health-care decision-maker do not seem to work together, identify the concern before relying on the arrangement. The person selected to make decisions and the written instructions serve different functions, even when both appear in the same directive.

Codi M. Dada Law Office P.C. serves clients virtually throughout California. To discuss your planning questions, contact the firm at 844-492-4600. The firm’s physical office is at 802 Grant Ave, Novato, CA 94945; Richfield is a community served remotely, not a firm branch.