If you’ve ever read our blog, you know we think that estate planning is an important practicality for all adults. Regardless of what your finances look like or how many assets you’ve accrued to date, you have wishes for your future. Estate planning helps you ensure that those wishes are followed and lets you make plans for heirs or beneficiaries when necessary. Even if you don’t have anything to pass on to someone else right now, you might still want to create an advance health care directive.
An advance health care directive makes your wishes known about certain medical and end-of-life decisions. One of the biggest reasons to put such wishes down on paper in legal format is so that your wishes are heard even when you can’t voice them. If you’re ever incapacitated by accident or illness, then health care workers and your family know what you want.
Another reason to create a health care directive is to remove what can be a terrible burden from your loved ones. Family members who must make end-of-life or major health care decisions on behalf of an incapacitated loved one often struggle with such decisions.
How can your family balance their own emotions with their thoughts on what your wishes might be? Even if they are able to do so, they can only act on what their best guess is regarding your wishes unless you’ve left an advance directive.
Finally, you might want to create an advance directive to curtail any possible foul play in the future. In most cases, this is a minimal risk, but as you accrue wealth or assets through the years, people might covet them enough to take unethical action. An advance directive requires doctors and nurses to follow your wishes, not someone else’s. Our firm helps you put your wishes into a legally binding format so that you can maximize the benefits of your health care directive.
The Law Offices of Yacoba Ann Feldman is an experienced San Fernando Valley Estate Planning and Administration Attorney. If you need a compassionate and effective attorney, contact our firm for a consultation.
