After receiving Estate Planning documents, one of the most important steps to take is ensuring that all doctors and organizations making up your medical team have a copy of the Health Care Directive. This document serves to appoint an agent as your Health Care Power of Attorney and gives treatment instructions in the event of an end-stage medical condition, otherwise known as a “Living Will”. We stress the importance of having a Health Care Directive, but rarely do we stress the importance of making sure it is shared appropriately.

 

Recently, a friend of mine shared a story of what happened with her family when they did not share their healthcare Directive with their medical team. Her mother, for whom she was the health care agent, was struggling and ended up needing to be hospitalized. Having reached a point where decisions needed to be made on her mother’s behalf, the hospital requested a copy of her estate planning documents. Neither my friend nor her stepfather had brought a copy with them and were unsure where the documents even were. The hospital then offered to provide a new set of documents for her mother, particularly the Health Care Directive in case anything was to go wrong. Rather than driving back home and attempting to find her original documents, my friend and her stepfather decided to go ahead and have the new ones made. When the nurse asked the mother who she would like to act as her agent, her daughter suggested appointing both herself and her stepfather. Her mom, however, immediately stated that her daughter was the only one she wanted as her agent and the only one to be making the decisions for her. The situation was difficult and presented an uncomfortable moment for the daughter. She could tell that her stepfather, whom she was extremely close to, was upset and did not understand why his wife did not trust him to make such decisions for her. If this family had given the documents to their medical team right away, it perhaps would have saved them from a difficult moment, making an impossible situation even more stressful.

 

We at Bellomo & Associates encourage our clients to take their Health Care Directives immediately to their doctors, hospitals, and anyone within their medical team. We will always provide extra copies of documents for children, relatives, or those you have appointed so they can have them on hand as well. It is not enough to simply have the documents, but make sure you have them where you need them. Knowing where your documents are and having peace of mind knowing all medical parties on your team have them could save your future self from unnecessary heartache.