Why You Need an Advance Directive for Healthcare

Thanks to the Georgia State Retirees Association, which invited me to speak to them yesterday about the importance of Advance Directives for Healthcare. Why should you execute an Advance Directive for Healthcare? Here are some of the big ones:

1) It's free. The Georgia Legislature created a form, so you don't have to worry about the language or pay a lawyer to do it.

2) It allows you to die with dignity. We are all going to die, but we will not all have choices about how it happens.

3) It costs you money NOT to execute one. Guess who pays the tab if you are in the hospital in a coma for months? Your estate. This can mean there is nothing left for you to leave your heirs in your Will after all, if they have to sell your assets to pay medical bills first.

4) You might want to override the default decision-maker. If you have an unmarried partner (of any gender), and you want that person to make decisions about what happens to you, you need to name that person as the decision-maker.

5) You want to spare your family the anxiety of second-guessing what you would have wanted. Don't assume your adult children just know what you want -- they might not.

Advance Directives do not need to be notarized, so if you can find two adults who will not benefit from your death, you can execute one right now. Do it.

Workshop: "You Only Die Once" - An Overview of Advance Directives for Healthcare and Wills

Join me again this Sunday, January 22, 2012 at 9:30 a.m. at North Decatur Presbyterian Church (Medlock and N. Decatur) where I will be teaching the second of two classes about the legal and medical aspects of death with Emory Hospital Oncology Nurse Nancy Reynics.

Last week, we talked about Georgia's Advance Directive for Healthcare form, what happens if you do not have one, and the importance of choosing someone as your agent who will be assertive when dealing with doctors, to make sure your wishes are followed.

This week, we will finish that discussion and talk about some of the other practical aspects of planning for death: planning for your funeral and getting your affairs in order for probate.

These two sessions are part of an eight-week adult Christian education class sponsored by NDPC. All are welcome, regardless of religious belief, and there is no charge.