Health Care Directives

HEALTH CARE DIRECTIVE

What is it?

In California, the health care directive is now in the form commonly used and put out by statute called an “ADVANCE HEALTH CARE DIRECTIVE”. It is for the most part a combination of the two documents that used to be used for these purposes: “Living Will” and a “Durable Power of Attorney for Health Care”. The ADVANCE HEALTH CARE DIRECTIVE is a form that allows you to

  • specify and describe your health care decisions, including setting out the exact details of your preferences for the nature of the treatments you desire in what are often called “end-of-life” situations, where you are incapacitated and unable to take care of and make health care decisions for yourself.
  • appoint a trusted person as your health care agent who will have the legal authority to seek medical care for you, and to make all medical decisions for you in the event you are incapacitated.