Advance care planning is a process that helps people think and talk about their choices for health care in the future.

An advance directive is a way to tell your loved ones and doctors your wishes if something happens and you can’t speak for yourself. A directive can include the type and extent of your medical care.

Advance directives are legal documents that outline your preferences regarding major medical decisions. The two main types are a living will and a durable power of attorney. An advance directive is ...

Advance health care directives are legal documents that outline a person’s preferences for medical treatment in case they are unable to communicate those decisions themselves. These directives not ...

States generally allow a person (principal) to appoint another person (agent) to make health care decisions, receive protected health information, or both on the principal’s behalf. In many states, ...

The COVID-19 pandemic has upended virtually all of our daily routines. Likewise, it has changed the way estate planning attorneys (and hopefully you) think about your Advance Health Care Directive.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, many people unexpectedly needed critical care such as ventilators but were unable to communicate their end-of-life wishes to their loved ones. Researchers like me, who ...

Are you interested in having one on file? The best time to prepare your Advanced Medical Directive (pdf) is before a circumstance arises where one may be needed. An Advance Health Care Directive (or ...

Talking about your advance care directive with your loved ones will make life — and death — easier later on. By Dana G. Smith Instead of talking about politics around the Thanksgiving table this year, ...

A serious cycling accident on Gibraltar Road, a freeway collision, a stroke — any of these could take away your ability to communicate, and they can happen at any age. The Advance Care Directive is a ...

Five minutes. That is all I had to make my case: to convince this 80-year-old man to fill out an advanced care directive. John, as I’ll call him, had served in the military for over thirty years, ...

Christy Bieber has a JD from UCLA School of Law and began her career as a college instructor and textbook author. She has been writing full time for over a decade with a focus on making financial and ...