But if we are so keen to flee and avoid these decisions, it is often because we do not understand them. This is where an estate planning lawyer steps in to help and clear up the fog.

An Advanced Healthcare Directive is a set of estate planning tools and documents that combine to create a clear picture of your preferences across a variety of potential medical situations. It kicks in when you are unable to make decisions for yourself to provide the state, doctors, and your family clear guidance for what you would have decided or preferred. It does more than just describe your wishes; it also adds protection for them and for your loved ones. By putting your wishes into clear and legally binding words, you spare your family from fighting over them.

The main components of most advanced healthcare directives are:

1. Identifying medical decision makers (medical power of attorney)

2. End-of-life care and preferences (living will)

3. Post-death decisions about organ donation and funeral requirements.

These preferences are witnessed, notarized, and can be filed with the state so that even if you are hospitalized miles away from anyone who knows you, your preferences will be honored.

These are clearly important topics, so let us break them down together so that you know what to expect from the advanced healthcare directive process and can begin thinking about your answers.

1. Picking A Medical Decision Maker In Orange County

Advanced healthcare directives are consulted when you can no longer make your own decisions. While they often include details on a great many different possibilities, no legal document can capture every single eventuality.

As a result, it is important that you nominate at least one person who can make those decisions for you. You should pick someone, usually a loved one, family member, or close friend, who is familiar with your wishes and preferences and is available near where you live in Orange County. You can (and should) also add backup decision makers should your first choice be unavailable.

You may be giving this person life-or-death control over you and your body, so it is important to choose carefully. Be aware of the burden you are placing on them, but also how much easier you are making things for the rest of your loved ones and other family members who will not have to fight over any of these decisions.

If no medical decision-maker is chosen: your family may be consulted but disagree, causing conflicts. In extreme cases, they may have to go to court to resolve the issue.

2. Why Consult A Lawyer For Your Orange County Living Will?

Advanced healthcare directives are sometimes called living wills because they can take effect even before you die. If you are in an accident and need to be intubated or develop progressive dementia and are unable to make decisions, the only way for doctors and healthcare professionals to know what your preferences are for treatment or life-sustaining measures is to consult your advanced healthcare directive.

Living will questions focus on determining your priorities, for example, between providing comfort vs pushing for life extension. It encourages you to think about what impacts your quality of life the most and what life-sustaining measures (and how many) should be tried before letting you pass.

These questions might seem abstract and far off, but as too many families in Orange County found out in Orange County when loved ones were placed on ventilators or respirators during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, they can come up suddenly and unexpectedly. Only by consulting a lawyer ahead of time to go over the possibilities and choosing your own will you be able to spare family members having to make such tough calls.

Ultimately, if you want a document that reflects your individual situation, circumstances, and preferences, obtaining an attorney’s help to prepare a truly personalized healthcare directive is vital.

3. Your Body Is So Much More Than An Afterthought

We only have one vessel for our time on earth, and part of your advanced healthcare directive requires laying out what you want to be done with it both before and after you pass on.

For example, you will be asked if you are willing to donate some or all of your organs after your death. This is a big decision and one of the many reasons adults of every age in Orange County, not just the elderly or recently retired, should create an estate plan and an advanced healthcare directive.

Other considerations include what doctors need to know about your funeral arrangements and preferences, as well as whether you wish to have an autopsy done or avoid such a procedure.

These decisions might seem less pressing than the others, and perhaps in some ways they are, but they are also questions that, one day, no matter what any of us try or how much we bury our heads in the beaches of Orange County, will require an answer. So why delay?

The Law Office Of Rebecca Sommer | Protect your wishes and loved ones by talking to an Orange County estate planning lawyer about your advanced healthcare directive.

No one wants to think about death, and incapacitation or dementia can be even more terrifying for some. However, these are problems that an increasingly large number of Orange County residents will have to tackle. Chances are you already know someone who has, and how you feel about that situation may depend in no small part on how well they planned for it and whether their estate plan anticipated it.

Do not pass the burden on to your family out of fear, uncertainty, or a desire to avoid the question. Not when you can pick up the phone and call (657) 571-1241 to reach our team of kind and patient estate planning lawyers and talk about setting up your personalized advanced healthcare directive.