Advance Directive Blackout For Free

Doctors are not permitted to perform surgeries against the wishes of their patients, even if the patient is incapacitated at the time of the procedure (provided that the patient previously made their wishes known, such as through a living will).

An advance directive provides a clear understanding of your health care wishes before you become unable to voice them, and a durable power of attorney makes decisions for you that you can no longer make.

They enable physicians and surrogates to make good-faith efforts to respect the patient's goals and implement the patient's preferences when the patient does not have decision-making capacity. An advance directive never takes precedence over the contemporaneous wishes of a patient who has decision-making capacity.

Here are three important things you should know about health care advance directives.You retain the right to override the decisions or your representative, change the terms of your living will or POA, or completely revoke an advance directive.

Despite what is written above, doctors and medical care providers may be able to legally ignore your wishes and orders contained in your health care directives if you are pregnant.This is especially true if you are in your second or third trimester.

If a patient cannot make decisions and has created no advance directive, health care providers traditionally have turned to family members for treatment decisions. A close family member is allowed to exercise substituted judgment on behalf of the patient.

A living will tells your health care provider what types of treatment you want or don't want should you become incapacitated.However, another type of advance directive a medical power of attorney puts these decisions in someone else's hands.