by Suzanne Carreiro, LMSW, Hospicare Social Worker
One of my jobs as a hospice social worker is to help our patients and their families think about and complete advance directives. Advance directives provide a road map to future healthcare and are important documents everyone should have. They can include a healthcare proxy (someone you designate to make decisions about your healthcare if you are incapacitated); a living will (guidelines about the type of care you want or do not want); and a Medical Orders for Life Sustaining Treatment (MOLST) form (a document signed by your doctor outlining the type of care you want and who can make decisions for you).
Talking about advance directives and long-term healthcare wishes can be difficult, especially if the first discussion is at a time when a loved one is seriously ill or dying. I encourage you to talk regularly with your loved ones about the type of care you’d want so they aren’t left struggling to guess your wishes. The other important step is completing the advance directive forms.
But how do you make the important decisions necessary to fill out these forms? The following are some suggestions you may find helpful as you think about your own advance directives.
- Figure out what’s most important to you. What do you value about your life, your health and how you live? How much medical care are you generally comfortable with? Would you want everything possible medically to be done for you? Would that change if you were diagnosed with a terminal disease? Knowing how you think about healthcare and life is the first step in being able to articulate your wishes for your own health.
- Decide who you want to speak for you. If you’re unable to speak for yourself, who do you trust to make healthcare decisions for you? For some people, this is their spouse or adult child. I know one woman who chose a close friend to be her healthcare proxy because she didn’t believe her family members would abide by the type of care she would want. I’ve had patients who chose a sibling or adult child because they didn’t want to burden their spouse with making tough decisions at what would be a very emotionally difficult time.
- A healthcare proxy is more important than a living will. For most adults, having someone you trust as your healthcare proxy matters more than having a detailed living will. The living will forms might encourage you to try to imagine every possible medical scenario, but things rarely happen the way they were imagined. It’s more important to speak to your designated healthcare proxy (and other family members and close friends) about your general philosophy of care.
- Talk to your primary care physician about a MOLST form. (In some states this form is called POLST or physician’s orders). Most of us don’t need a MOLST form yet, but for people who are getting older or who have been diagnosed with a serious illness, the MOLST form replaces the living will. Since MOLST forms are signed by your doctor, they are actual medical orders.
- Review and revisit your advance directives periodically. As your health or life circumstances change, you should review, and perhaps revise, your advance directives. At a minimum, we recommend reviewing your advance directives when you have a birthday and your new age ends in 5 or 0; when you’re diagnosed with a serious or chronic illness; if you get divorced or married; or when someone close to you dies. To revise your living will or healthcare proxy, complete new forms and have them witnessed, write “revoke” on your old forms or destroy them, and give updated copies of the forms to your healthcare proxy, your physician, your local hospital and anyone else who has a copy of the previous forms. If you have a MOLST form, your doctor is required to review it with you periodically, especially if you move, have a change in health status or change your mind about care. You need to hold onto the originals of the forms and keep them somewhere they can be easily located if needed.
- There are no right or wrong answers. Go back to the first item in this list. Who are you as an individual and what do you value? Each of us have our own wants and needs. Your healthcare wishes don’t need to match anyone else’s wants and needs, they just need to be right for you at this time.
Advance directives are something every adult should complete and discuss with their loved ones. You don’t need a social worker or medical professional to complete these forms; you can do it on your own. In most situations, in New York State, to complete the living will and health care proxy forms you only need two people to sign as witnesses.
Visit Hospicare’s Advance Care Planning web page to learn more.