A surprisingly low number of Americans have an advanced healthcare directive. This important legal document can ensure doctors and medical staff will follow your medical wishes if you become injured or incapacitated, yet very few people know about it. An advanced healthcare directive is an important part of your estate plan.
An advance healthcare directive goes into effect if you’re terminally ill, seriously injured, incapacitated, in the late stages of dementia, or near the end of your life and unable to communicate your healthcare wishes to your medical team and family. It can include a sudden accident that leaves you unable to speak to the doctors – or a slow progression of age or disease that eventually takes away your ability to talk with your physician. This legal document tells the doctors and your loved ones the level of medical care you desire.
These medical decisions may include:
All of these decisions are ones that you want the medical facility to know about. And if you are unconscious or unable to express your wishes, a healthcare directive will do that for you. A healthcare directive can be temporary or long-term; everyone should have one. You may also want to tell your loved ones about a healthcare directive.
There is a saying that says, ‘Expect the worst but hope for the best.‘ A healthcare directive is not necessarily planning for the worst, but it most certainly is utilized when something bad happens to you. A healthcare directive:
You should include this document when building your estate plan. An experienced estate planning attorney can help you start your plan with a will or trust, a power of attorney, and a healthcare directive.
Read Here To Learn More About Illinois Advance Healthcare Directive:
Now is the perfect time to begin estate planning. Knowing you have a healthcare directive will ease your mind and help your loved ones. With expert guidance from the estate planning attorneys at Estate & Probate Legal Group in Illinois, we can help make this happen. Contact us today at 630-864-5835.
AREAS WE SERVE: Cook, DuPage, Kane, Lake, Kendall and Will counties
