For Seniors -Retirement Plans Include Critical Health Directives
Author: Doctor Health
Too often, seniors mistake the concept of retirement planning to only include the financial dimension of the plan. This is a mistaken perspective.Senior Retirement
The complete retirement plan considers all aspects of retirement including financial needs, personal pursuits, estate plans, legacy gifting, travel, hobbies and of course health care.
One critical aspect of planning for retirement is giving thoughtful consideration for “Advanced Directives”.
What are advanced Directives? Retirement Plan
In the simplest terms, Advance Directives involve preparing the legal documents needed to accurately present your desires and expectations regarding personal health care treatment if circumstances occur where you can’t make your own decisions.
Most Advance Directives are offered in the form of a Living Will or a Durable Power of Attorney. This article is only informational and is not intended to provide legal advice. Check with an attorney to determine what type of advance directive is appropriate in your state.
Essentially, a Living Will is a legal document whereby a patient can state in advance their personal wishes to either receive, or to have withheld, active life-support if they are deemed to be permanently unconscious or terminally ill and lack the ability to make informed choices.
To be applicable, the Living Will is valid when at least two doctors confirm that a patient is in an irreversible coma or has been diagnosed with a terminal illness and can not make critical personal health care decisions.
If a patient can make an informed decision, the requirements of the Living Will are not in effect.
What differentiates a Durable Power of Attorney for health care from a Living Will is the patient can identify in advance who is authorized to make critical health care treatment decisions if they can’t make them independently.
The person specified in a Durable Power of Attorney may also be known as the “attorney in fact”, “surrogate or proxy decision maker” or simply “agent”. Some have also used the term “patient advocate”.
Also, the Durable Power of Attorney is a legal instrument used solely for the health care treatment decisions of a patient that is unable to make them.
And the inability to make health care decisions does not have to be resulting from a coma or terminal illness when a Durable Power of Attorney is used in contrast to a Living Will.
The inability to make health care decisions should not be confused with mental incompetence. In the instance of mental incompetence, most courts will appoint a legal guardian empowered to make all financial, legal and health care decision. This appointment will only occur if adequate proof of incompetence has been presented to the court for consideration.
In most locations, the Living Will and Durable Power of Attorney both require at least two doctors to confirm that a patient does not have the capacity to make informed health care choices but the Living Will further requires the patient be in an irreversible coma or diagnosed with a terminal illness.
When a patient is being checked in to a hospital or clinic, most will inquire about the existence of an advanced directive.
Some states have laws requiring hospitals to ask about advance directives and provide documents if the patient doesn’t possess the documents. These directives must be well documented in the patient’s medical chart.
Every senior should take steps through the use of advance directives to ensure their personal health care treatment choices are honored even if circumstances occur that prevent a conscious choice.
The use of Advance Directives is not a replacement for active and honest communications between health care professionals, patient and family members. As circumstances change, these important directives should be amended to always align with the wishes of the patient.Senior Advisors
For more than 20 years, Karl Edmunds has been a noted author within the business and management consulting arena. As a senior, he now engages his curiosity and observations about life to write about key issues of importance to the growing community of seniors (Boomers), and the value of living life to the fullest every single day. Give me your comments and suggests at http://Plan-Retirement.org or http://For-Seniors.org