A living will is an essential part of estate planning. It’s a legal document that allows your voice to be heard should you be unable to communicate. We can help give you peace of mind.
Everything You Need to Know About Protect Your Choices With a Living Will
What Is a Living Will?
A living will is a legal document created to inform your doctor, family, and friends of your health care preferences. It covers the kinds of medical treatment you may or may not want in end-of-life and other medical emergencies. It allows you to ensure your medical treatment aligns with your personal, religious, or philosophical beliefs.
Why Is a Living Will Important?
It allows you to maintain legal control over your own health care when you are incapacitated. You can specify preferences for various medical scenarios, not just end-of-life situations. When one is in place, you’re prepared in case you become unable to make medical decisions. Knowing your wishes will be followed can provide comfort to both you and your family.
What Happens If You Don’t Have a Living Will?
Without a living will, you risk losing control over your medical care if you become incapacitated. Health care providers or family members will have to make critical decisions without knowing your wishes. You may receive interventions or life-prolonging measures you wouldn’t have chosen for yourself. Worst-case scenario, if you don’t have a living will and there’s a disagreement between your family and doctors, courts may get involved.
How Do You Write a Living Will?
We take care of it for you as part of your estate planning services. While you can write a living will yourself, consulting with an attorney helps ensure it's comprehensive and legally valid. Before meeting with someone, decide on your medical preferences and how you want certain situations handled.
When Should You Have a Living Will?
As soon as possible! If you’re 18 years-old or older, you want to have a living will. Prior to 18, your parents generally make your medical decisions. Ideally, every adult should have a living will, regardless of age or health status. It's better to create one early and update it as needed rather than waiting for a medical crisis.
10 Benefits of Having a Living Will
- Medical autonomy: Ensure your health care wishes are respected when you can't communicate them yourself.
- Clarity for family and health care providers: Remove any doubt about your end-of-life care preferences and reduce stress and conflict for your family.
- Avoid unwanted treatments: Decide what kind of medical interventions you do and don’t want. This is critical in life-prolonging measures for terminal conditions.
- Reduce family burden: Relieve your loved ones from making difficult decisions without knowing what you want.
- Legal protection: These legally binding documents help ensure your wishes are actually carried out.
- Complements other documents: Along with your health care power of attorney, your living will provide comprehensive guidance.
- Flexibility: You get to specify how you want various medical scenarios handled, not just end-of-life situations.
- Prompt care: Expedite decision-making when it matters most.
- Cost management: By documenting your preferred treatments, you help avoid unnecessary medical expenses.
- Reflecting personal values: Ensure your medical treatment aligns with your personal, religious, and philosophical beliefs.
What’s Included in a Living Will?
Remember the term “living will” refers to a collection of documents. The exact contents may vary based on personal preferences and state requirements. In general, a living will includes:
Health care preferences for end-of-life situations:
- Use of life-sustaining treatments (e.g., ventilators, feeding tubes)
- Resuscitation wishes (DNR orders)
- Pain management preferences
- Comfort care instructions
Your wishes for specific scenarios such as:
- Terminal illness
- Permanent unconsciousness
- Advanced dementia
- Severe brain damage
Decisions and preferences on:
- Palliative care
- Artificial nutrition and hydration
- Religious or spiritual considerations
- Specific treatments you want to refuse or accept
- Experimental treatments or participation in medical studies
What’s the Difference Between a Living Will and an Advance Health Care Directive?
Good question! A living will is a single document. An advance directive is a collection of documents, that includes a living will, durable power or attorney, do-not-resuscitate order, mental health advance directive, organ donation directive, and other documents that express your wishes regarding health care if you’re incapacitated.
Living Will FAQs
A living will gives directions for when you’re alive but unable to voice your wishes. A last will and testament details your wishes for when you pass away. Both are important components of an estate plan.
Sort of. A living will is sometimes called an advance health care directive, but they are two different documents. The term living will refers to a collection of legal documents written to ensure your wishes when you’re unable to voice them yourself.
Absolutely, and you should. At any time your health care wishes change, you want to update your living will. Life events such as marriage, children, divorce, and pivotal career moves may shift how you want your medical care handled. As technology advances, medical breakthroughs happen all the time. New treatments and insights change the potential for survival. What was deemed terminal yesterday may be curable today. You may want to mark your calendar on a date every year to review your estate plan. This allows you to set aside time to revisit the landscape. We’re here to help you adjust your entire estate plan at any time.
There are many pros to having a living will. The key benefit is communicating your wishes for your end-of-life care and care should you become incapacitated. The only real cons are things solved by using an attorney and thinking through exactly what needs to be done: • Lack of clear language • Failure to revise • Neglecting family wishes • No execution plan • Out-of-date compliance You can easily overcome these cons by using an attorney, consulting anyone involved in carrying out your wishes, and planning to revise your living will on a regular basis.
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LLC Attorney Team
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