Who Knows About Your Advanced Medical Directives?

We all know about the importance and need for health care and medical directives. Without them, our loved ones don’t know our wishes on what we want the doctors to do when our health is in a diminishing state. Without a medical directive, others are left to make these decisions in a time when emotions are high and critical decisions have to be made…sometimes very quickly. This isn’t the time for guesswork…it’s the time for someone to act upon our wishes without any questions.

There are extreme situations that can arise from not having medical directive in place. One extreme says the family wants to keep you alive as long as possible and with any means possible because they love you and have hope. However, this can be a very expensive decision and one you may not want them to make to preserve your estate and have them benefit from it rather than paying it to the medical profession. The other extreme says a relative might not want to prolong the suffering or give the life saving measures a chance and “pull the plug” prematurely for what you would want to have happen.

While both are extremes, some variation of these is almost always occurring at a critical time that involves your health. You can easily remove this burden by spending some time while you are healthy and competent. You can spell out exactly what it is you want to have happen so your family and loved ones aren’t forced to make a decision that could take them to one of the two extremes.

It is very easy to get advanced medical directives today. While it should be part of your discussion with your attorney and built into your overall estate plan, you can often get health care powers of attorney as part of the process of admission to a hospital. If you tell a doctor about your wishes, it is often good enough for the doctor to make a note of them in his or her notes. However, getting these medical directive documents at a hospital or by telling a doctor can be problematic.

The system of medical records used in the U.S. does not make it easy for doctors to know that you have expressed your wishes ahead of time, especially when they actually need the information as The New York Times reports in "You've Detailed Your Last Wishes, but Doctors May Not See Them."

There is actually a pretty simple way to bypass this issue and eliminate this as a problem. The key is “advanced planning.” Get your living will and your health care power of attorney ahead of time. Go to your estate planning attorney and have them put together a fully functioning living estate plan and medical directives well in advance of anything happening. They can put your wishes into your plan and in your final documents so there are no questions or ambiguity.

Once you have created your estate plan, do two things to make sure this works the way you want. First, store them in a secure place.  Second, make sure that someone you trust knows where to find the documents. This person can then retrieve them when needed and present them to the doctors who are caring for you. Now you have a “proactive” plan in place to protect you and your loved ones in a time of crisis instead of relying on emotions to dictate your wishes.