A Medical Directive or Living Will is of FUNDAMENTAL importance. We do them for free for current and former clients and anyone that promotes our facebook site.
An Advance Directive, Medical Directive or Living Will is a legal document in which you specify your health care wishes should you become unable to speak for yourself, such as in cases of a head injury, dementia, a coma or some other incapacitating injury or disease. These directives can then be shared with appropriate family members, your hospital or health care provider to help ensure your wishes are known and followed.
We aim to increase the number of people who understand this process and the importance of planning in case of sudden and unexpected trauma or the gradual end of life. As morose and scary as it all is, it is a fact of life. We will all die. Yet, we shouldn’t add additional stress to that time. Planning, talking with loved ones about their wishes and completing Advance Directives will make things far easier and will prevent $1000’s of dollars of legal fees down the road.
Any family will struggle with hard decisions, such as what to do when their loved ones’ wishes aren’t known. One of the hardest things that anyone will ever have to do is make decisions about a family member’s health care without knowing what someone wants.
Completing a Medical Directive, sometimes known as a Living Will or Advance Directive eases that burden on your family members. It can also be a relief for you to know that you have not left your children or other loved ones with that burden. And it helps hospitals know what care to provide for you.
What can happen if you don’t have one? You are injured in a strange city and become incapacitated. Your family may have to find a local lawyer, appoint a stranger to you to determine what is in your best interest and have strangers make that decision. The cost is $1000‘s of dollars. Or that decision may be left up to a family member who doesn’t know what you want. No one wants that pressure of live versus death.
Advance Directives can be changed as your wishes change. We generally prepare them for clients and past clients for FREE as a thank you to show we care. However, for those that help promote our new FACEBOOK site, we will prepare one for you as a THANK YOU. Free of charge. Help us grow. And we want to help ease a burden off of you and your family members.
John M. Phillips
Law Office of John Phillips
knowthelawyer.com
jmp@knowthelawyer.com