Advance Directives
An Advance Directive for Healthcare covers four areas.
- Nominates a Healthcare Agent
- States your end of life choice
- Determines who handles the final disposition of your body
- Nominates a guardian
When you complete the form, you choose someone to be your healthcare agent, which is the person who will make medical decisions for you and communicate with your healthcare providers. The most important part of the Advance Directive is the end of life choice section. Determining your end of life choice can be emotional and difficult to decide, but that is not a decision that you want to leave to your family to decide. Your end of life choice can be to extend your life for as long as possible, to allow your natural death to occur, or an option that is somewhere in the middle. If you do not make your decision on your document, it will be up to your family to guess what you would have wanted. If you have not had those conversations with your loved ones, then they may not know what to do. An Advance Directive can guide them through those decisions, because you have made those choices for them. An Advance Directive also gives your Healthcare Agent access to your medical information. Anyone who is over the age of 18 needs an advance directive. If you do not have an Advance Directive, your loved ones may have to go to court to be appointed to make medical decisions for you. If you have questions about the Advance Directive, then give us a call and we can answer your questions.