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The Terri Schiavo Case:
How to prevent conflicts about medical care in your family
No matter what your personal opinion about the Terri Schiavo case, there is one clear lesson to be learned: you must take steps to ensure that your health care wishes will be honored. Ms. Schiavo did not have a living will. The lack of this important document left the question of her desire for life sustaining measures open for debate. This debate has raged for over 15 years as her husband, her parents, and then Congress have battled over what each feels she would have wanted.
There has been a lot of talk about living wills and health care powers of attorney lately. These legal documents (often called advance directives or health care directives) are important because they make your medical wishes known if you can't speak for yourself. Here is a brief description of the four primary health care directives and how they protect your wishes:
A Living Will is the directive you use to explain your medical preferences in the event that you are unable to speak for yourself. This is the document you use to indicate whether you would or would not want a feeding tube, a ventilator, etc.
A Health Care Power Of Attorney is the directive you use to choose someone to speak for you if you aren't capable of making your own decisions. This person, often called a health care agent or health care proxy, uses your living will or your other instructions as guidance to make informed decisions about your care. It is important that you choose a trusted individual who will uphold your wishes when the time comes.
A HIPAA Authorization allows doctors and hospitals to give your medical information to the people you designate so they can make informed decisions about your care and treatment.
Organ Donation Authorization is completed if you wish to be an organ donor.
Michael Wald includes all of these directives as part of his complete estate planning package.
Completing these documents is crucial, but it's still not enough. It's also essential to do a few other things.
First, you should talk to your loved ones. Tell the person you've chosen as your health care power of attorney that you've selected them, and be sure they're willing to do it. You also need to talk to your family about your medical wishes, especially about end-of-life care. The more information your family has about your views, the more you will help yourself and your family, should the need arise down the road to make decisions about your care. These discussions can help ease the emotional stress your family may feel in making difficult decisions about your care, particularly if you opt for less medical intervention at the end of life.
Second, if you have already completed these documents, it's important to review them periodically to make sure they still reflect your wishes. We recommend that you look at them once a year. It's especially important to update them if your family situation has changed (ie, do you need to appoint a different health care agent?) or if there's a change in your medical condition.
Also, changes in state or federal law can make it necessary to update your directives. For example, if you completed your directives prior to April 2004, they probably need to be updated for HIPAA (see above), so that you're not tripped up by hospitals that could try to deny you access to medical information about a family member, even in a hospital emergency.
Third, it is also critically important that these directives be available to hospitals and doctors right away. It's vital to have completed and updated your documents, AND it's also essential that they be accessible in an emergency. So, we take your health care directives an important extra step to secure their availability.
Emergency access to your health care directives can be conveyed through a DocuBank membership. It will get your health care directives to a hospital or doctor that needs them at a moment's notice, anywhere in the world. This service also supplies the names and phone numbers of your loved ones and your doctor so they can be contacted in an emergency.
As part of this membership you will receive a wallet card that instructs the hospital to call DocuBank's toll-free number and the directives will be faxed to them promptly.
If you are not a member of DocuBank, call Mr. Wald and he will help you enroll. If you do not have these essential documents or if you think they may need to be updated, call him today. Mr. Wald will be happy to discuss your health care directives with you.
A health care directive protects you and your family. Make your wishes known now - - prevent the conflict later.
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