Advance Healthcare Directives - Pennington Law, PLLC

As you get older, you may develop medical conditions or experience health emergencies that leave you unable to make decisions for yourself. An advance healthcare directive is a form of estate planning that allows you to leave instructions for the management of your financial matters and end-of-life care if a sudden injury or illness leaves you incapacitated. These legal documents can provide reassurance that your preferences will be respected and eliminate confusion among family members over what you “would have wanted.”

Several types of advance directives can round out your estate plan and guide your family during an emotionally taxing time. At Pennington Law, PLLC, our Arizona estate planning attorneys can discuss the best tools to accomplish your goals. Contact us today for a free consultation.

Why Are Advance Directives Important?

Advanced healthcare directives form a critical part of an estate plan. Most people have strong preferences about the types of life-saving measures they want to be performed in an emergency. For example, some want to avoid resuscitation if doctors believe they will spend the rest of their lives attached to a machine or in a nursing home. With an advance healthcare directive, you can outline your wishes so there is no question about what you want.

In an advance directive, you designate one or more trusted individuals to oversee your healthcare and financial matters until you regain capacity or pass away.

Types of Advanced Directives

Examples of advance directives in Arizona include:

Living wills – In this document, you state your medical preferences and doctors will turn to your loved ones for guidance on your medical care.
Healthcare power of attorney (POA) – Healthcare powers of attorney allow you to give a trusted agent the legal authority to make medical decisions on your behalf if an emergency occurs. In Arizona, your healthcare POA (also called a medical power of attorney) goes into effect after signing, even if you can still make your own decisions.
Mental healthcare power of attorney – Mental healthcare powers of attorney authorize an agent to make mental healthcare decisions for you if a doctor decides you are unable to give informed consent. However, your agent cannot agree to admit you to an inpatient behavioral health facility unless the POA expressly allows it.
Pre-hospital medical care directive – Popularly known as a Do Not Resuscitate order (DNR), a pre-hospital medical care directive directs emergency medical services or other healthcare providers to withhold CPR if you suffer cardiac or respiratory arrest. It does not prevent healthcare providers from providing other medical treatments, such as fluids, oxygen, or medications that can make you more comfortable or alleviate pain.

Is a Living Will the Same as an Advance Directive?

A living will is just one type of advance directive used in a comprehensive estate plan. It allows you to declare the types of medical care you wish to receive and, most importantly, specify the life-sustaining measures you do not want. It can include instructions about life support measures, feeding tubes, organ donation, funeral and burial arrangements, and the disposition of your remains. A living will, therefore, can serve as a guiding document for an agent named your health care power of attorney. It helps the agent to understand your values and make choices based on those wishes. If you have a living will and no healthcare POA, the decisions about your medical care will go to your next of kin.

Limitations of Advance Healthcare Directives

Although advance healthcare directives can provide people with a powerful estate planning tool, they come with some limitations that can cause challenges for individuals and families, such as:

Inability to anticipate the future – Life makes no promises. We cannot control what will happen to us or whether innovations in medical science may change our preferences. This uncertainty may leave shortcomings in an advance directive unless it is regularly updated.
Conflicts with the standard of medical care – A directive may indicate preferences for treatment that conflict with the applicable standard of care or the person’s best interests.
Conflicts with agents – A directive may have limited effectiveness if a person chooses an agent whose personal values or preferences differ from theirs and the agent disregards their wishes.
Inability to locate directive documents – When you become incapacitated, your agent or family members need to know where you keep your advance directive documents. Without them, you could receive delayed medical treatment or life-saving measures you do not want. It can also cause heated disputes between family members and agents. You can avoid this issue by providing your agents and healthcare providers with copies of your advance directives and the name of your estate planning lawyer.

What Happens If I Don’t Do Advance Care Planning?

When a person does not have an advance care directive, decisions about their medical affairs typically fall to a close family member, usually a spouse or adult child. However, a prolonged incapacity can lead to arguments among family members over who should continue making healthcare decisions on the disabled person’s behalf. In such cases, the court may have to appoint a legal guardian to give one person the explicit authority to handle medical decisions. Alternatively, the court may appoint a guardian if an incapacitated person has no family member willing to handle medical decision-making. Guardianship proceedings can be time-consuming and expensive, so it’s best to avoid this situation by completing an advance directive with an experienced estate planning attorney.

How Can an Estate Planning Lawyer from Pennington Law, PLLC Help Me?

When you’re ready to create an advanced health care directive, an estate planning lawyer from Pennington Law, PLLC can help you develop a tailored strategy by:

Discussing your preferences for medical treatment to understand your personal values and wishes
Outlining various tools, such as durable powers of attorney, to appoint an agent or agents to handle your medical, financial, business, and legal matters if you lose capacity
Reviewing what to look for in a good agent and help you identify trusted individuals to best represent your interests
Drafting and executing the estate planning documents that make up your advance directive
Working with you throughout your life to update your advance healthcare directive as your circumstances, preferences, and concerns change

It’s never too early to plan for health emergencies or sudden incapacity. An advanced medical directive can provide comfort in knowing that everyone you love and trust will understand your wishes if you can no longer communicate them. Contact Pennington Law, PLLC today for a free initial consultation with an experienced AZ estate planning lawyer.