Advance Care Planning: Protecting Your Wishes and Reducing Family Stress
Guiding your family through the upheaval and high emotions of a stressful personal episode requires diplomacy and a deft touch. If your health is failing and your family members are left to handle things themselves, you can still provide a reassuring presence—by planning with advance care directives and other estate tools.
Getting everyone in the family on board with your final wishes is the ultimate gift because it reduces conflict. Through these discussions and documents everyone is assured of your decisions. Making sure those instructions are correctly executed and legally binding requires collaborating with an estate or healthcare planning attorney with experience in state and federal laws.
6 Steps to Family Peace Through Estate and Healthcare Planning
A comprehensive package of documents and directives can relieve family members of much of the angst that surrounds a person’s final days. Documenting your decisions and directives before your health deteriorates allows fewer opportunities for disruption and dispute among family members.
By proactively creating advanced health care directives, you can prepare your caregivers and loved ones by opening discussions about your final wishes, including the level of medical intervention that you desire. A healthcare attorney formalizes the documents that establish a framework for your last days, including:
- Healthcare proxy. This is a task for a close friend or family member who is aware of your wishes regarding medical intervention. The proxy is appointed to make medical care decisions on behalf of the patient when the patient’s health declines to a point at which they are no longer capable of doing so.
- Living will. This documents your decisions about end-of-life care including the type of treatments that are acceptable and the level of medical intervention that can be undertaken. To be legally binding, this document must be witnessed and signed by two adults and shared with healthcare providers. It goes into effect when a physician confirms that you are no longer capable of communicating or making decisions.
- Power of Attorney. An additional step to reducing potential conflict is ensuring that day-to-day affairs are attended to with a power of attorney. Arranged in advance with a family member, friend, or colleague willing to step in when you are incapacitated, this person will be prepared with instructions and access to accounts for your business, household, or other interests.
Estate planning is a natural part of preparing family members for a future without you. When you create a trust and establish your wishes for distributing assets to your heirs through it, you can also structure customized payouts and can avoid the probate process that depletes cash and causes prolonged delays in distributions. The tools for estate planning generally include the following:
- Last Will and Testament. When witnessed and properly executed, a will names your heirs and expresses your wishes for distributing any assets that are not included in your trust. It should complement the trust documents and be kept updated to reflect any changes in your family. The will usually names an executor, a person who understands your desires and pledges to carry them out as your estate is settled.
- Revocable Trust. By assigning your assets to a revocable trust, you may still access and use them through your lifetime yet they are protected from probate. A trustee is appointed to oversee the trust vehicle for as long as necessary (some trusts span generations).
- Beneficiary designations. After a review of your assets an estate planning attorney will help establish beneficiaries for some of your accounts so they pass directly to your heirs upon your death. This method avoids probate and allows the fastest possible distribution of available funds, potentially providing for funeral expenses and payment of any medical bills immediately.
Why You Should Start Planning Today
An experienced attorney from DPL Lawyers will prompt you to take stock of your assets and create an up-to-date list of heirs immediately. By taking the initiative to protect and provide for your family you will be prompted to have important discussions with your loved ones to establish roles for proxies and executors. Call for a consultation today.