Having an advance healthcare directive ensures your medical team understands your treatment preferences, reduces family conflict, and helps you maintain autonomy even when illness impairs your ability to communicate. By appointing a trusted agent and clearly outlining decisions about life-sustaining care, you create a reliable framework for compassionate, personalized care.
Improved continuity of care and reduced stress during health crises are common benefits when directives are harmonized with asset planning and guardianship terms. This alignment supports smoother transitions and clearer expectations for everyone involved.
Our team provides practical guidance, clear drafting, and respectful support to align your directives with legal requirements and personal goals. We listen carefully, explain options, and draft documents that clinicians and families can trust.
Annual check-ins help confirm consent, confirm household changes, and adjust directives for new medications, caregivers, or sites of care, ensuring relevance and clarity.
An advance healthcare directive is a legal document that records your treatment preferences and names an agent to act if you cannot communicate, ensuring your goals are clear to clinicians and caregivers. It covers decisions about life-sustaining treatments, resuscitation, and the level of medical intervention you want, while providing guidance to substitute decision makers about when to pursue comfort measures or more aggressive care.
Choose alternates who share your values and know your health history. This ensures decisions can continue smoothly if your primary agent is unavailable, and helps avoid delays in critical moments. Many clients include a primary agent and alternates to ensure someone is available when needed, and they may also designate a backup for specific situations, such as hospital stays abroad.
A living will describes the types of medical treatments you want or do not want in specific health scenarios, especially near end-of-life, providing direction to clinicians when you cannot speak. It does not name patients; instead, it reflects your values and goals for comfort, dignity, and quality of life. An advance directive can name a healthcare agent and guide decisions across a broader range of situations, not just end-of-life care.
While you can prepare some documents on your own, working with an attorney helps ensure compliance with Maryland law, proper execution, and alignment with your overall estate plan. This reduces the risk of invalid terms. A professional can tailor directives to your health history, family dynamics, and financial realities, and can verify the documents meet state requirements and are easy for clinicians to access when time matters.
Review directives at least every few years or after major life changes such as marriage, divorce, a new illness, or relocation. These updates help ensure decisions reflect your current values. Keep contact information current, confirm agent availability, and verify that your documents are stored in a place clinicians can access quickly. Regular reviews prevent outdated guidance.
Yes. You can revise, revoke, or replace directives as circumstances and preferences change, and most documents include signatures, witnesses, and dates to reflect updates. Keep new copies with your healthcare providers. Always sign updated documents in the presence of required parties, and make sure old copies are superseded or clearly marked as invalid.
Bring existing directives, a list of medications, health insurance information, and contact details for your proposed healthcare agent and alternates, so we can assess compatibility and update documents accordingly. Be prepared to discuss your goals, values, and any religious or cultural considerations that should influence medical decisions. We will help you through the drafting session.
Directives guide decisions when you cannot communicate, but they do not force unwanted treatment if your situation changes and the directives allow room for professional judgment. Clinicians will consult family and follow the applicable law. A well-drafted directive supports compassionate care while respecting your autonomy, and it can be adjusted as medical options evolve.
Yes. You can tailor directives to address preferences for resuscitation, feeding tubes, ventilation, hospice, or palliative care in particular scenarios. Clear language reduces misinterpretation. We help you articulate these specifics so clinicians understand exactly when to follow or withhold certain interventions while honoring your overall goals.
Contact our Green Haven office to schedule an initial consultation. We will review your current documents, discuss goals, and outline a tailored plan for advance directives and living wills. Let us begin today. You can reach us by phone or online, and we guide you through steps with clear explanations, flexible scheduling, and transparent pricing.
