Expert Advice When You Need It Most

Who should have a copy of your AHCD/Advance Health Care Directive?

Written by: Carol Ann Hunter Peters

Reputation Level 8

Estate Planning

Posted about 3 years ago. 2 helpful votes, 0 comments

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Does your first Health Care Agent have the ORIGINAL COPY of your AHCD/Advance Health Care Directive?

Making all those decisions about WHO should serve may have been challenging, and even difficult. Having named someone responsible, you will want them to serve responsibly. But letting go of the original AHCD form may be even More Difficult. Some people put the original in their Safe Deposit Box and distibute copies to everyone named. This is better than NOT distributing copies, but when the need to serve arises, the original may be unavailable: the Health Care Agent may not be a signator on the Box (is that person good with money too?) The Health Care Agent needs to know where the original document is located. Sometimes these documents are kept with the Will or Trust in a desk drawer at home, or in the home safe. But this too can present the same problems. So if you give the original to the first Health Care Agent, and copies to every other Agent with a signed note about where the original is located, everyone on your team will have the same information.

Did you KEEP A COPY?

You should keep a copy of your AHCD several places: One place is with your tax papers at home, so that every year when you are getting your taxes together and reviewing your Will and/or Trust to see if everything still 'fits', you will be able to review these health care choices and options too, along with the finances. Is your health still the same? Has there been any newsworthy event in the past year that has caught your eye? Do you need to give further instructions to your Health Care Agent(s)? This is an on-going communication process, which you may always augment with new thoughts. You also may want to keep a copy in your car's glove box, so that if you are in a car accident the Agent's identify and phone numbers will be handy. You also may want to keep a copy in your refrigerator, so that Paramedics who look there (for insulin or other medications) will see it, in a "Vial Of Life" or otherwise.

WHEN should you do a new document?

If your Agent dies, you may not need to do a new document IF other Agents have been named: the medical providers will call the Agents in the priority listed, until they reach someone. So if an Agent is deceased, they are not only unavailable but will not be able to answer that phone call. The other Agents can speak for you, when you are unable to speak for yourself. //// Short of death, however, if your own Health Care Agent becomes disabled or incapacitated or moves away, you would be wise to name a successor Agent to serve in that person's stead. Many forms allow you to name up to three (3) Agents, but you may name more if you wish. You can do a new document with new nominations, but the same prior instructions. If you have changed your mind about your instructions, make and/or review your P.O.L.S.T./Physician Order ~ Life Sustaining Treatment form with your own doctor, to have a Physician Order (good anywhere) about your specific and current choices

If you do a new document, WHO should keep copies of the prior document?

Often people do a new document without recalling or recapturing all of the copies of the prior document(s) from the prior Agents or medical providers. Fortunately, in California it is not legally necessary to do so. But unfortunately, if you have expressed and written alternative and inconsistent choices, you may have created some ambiguities, which can make Informed Medical Consent difficult to discern. Fortunately, our medical providers in California understand this human frailty, and are able to take instructions from the LATEST DOCUMENT, and even if the prior documents have not been recalled or destroyed. Hopefully you will have expressed the same opinion about EOL/End Of Life options consistently through the years, so that the only change in the document is who will serve as your Health Care Agent. I suggest that you keep ALL of your prior documents, with a written summary chart about the changed agents, so that anyone can see at a glance who died and is unavailable