Estate Planning - Healthcare Directives

There are two more documents which is power of attorney and healthcare directives that should become part of your estate-planning tool kit.

Healthcare Directives

Bill and Judith Moyers put together a series for PBS about dying in America called Dying on Our Own Terms in 2000. What they encountered is the high and oftentimes unnecessary cost of dying. According to a Time magazine poll, 7 out of 10 Americans say they want to die at home; instead, three fourths of them die in medical institutions. More than a third of dying people spend at least 10 days in an intensive care unit, enduring attempts at a cure, hooked up to life-support machines. That's not where they want to be. They want someone to help them control their pain, and they want to be home with people who care for them.

One of the best ways to ensure that you will receive the care you want is to plan ahead. You are looking for two documents here. The first is sometimes referred to as a healthcare directive, an advanced directive, a medical directive, or a living will. It details your wishes as to what you want for medical treatment and, more importantly, what you don't want for treatment. Your doctor and the medical institution where you are a patient are duty-bound to honor your instructions.

The second document is a durable power of attorney for healthcare, sometimes referred to as a healthcare proxy. This document allows you to choose another person as your agent, your proxy, to act on your behalf to make medical decisions for you if you are incapacitated. Your proxy should be willing to be an advocate for you, lobbying on your behalf to carry out your wishes, not his or her own. Too often, relatives have trouble saying goodbye and don't want to let go of the dying. Remember that you want someone who will carry out your wishes!.

Your durable power of attorney for healthcare should elicit a conversation, no matter how difficult, with the person you name as your proxy. He or she should know how you deal about the issues surrounding dying, pain, and heroic measures.

The two documents should work together, and in some states are actually covered in one document. These documents, for most stats, should be available for free from your local hospital, hospice, or nursing home if you are admitted as a patient.

We have 50 states, and we have 50 different laws regarding healthcare directives. If you spend time in two sates, you may want to complete documents for both states. Your estate-planning attorney can help you with these.