Living Wills
($100 includes one revision within three years)
Living Wills are advance medical directives that are written directions you prepare that indicate the type of medical care you want or don't want in the event you become unable to make decisions for yourself. There are two types of advance medical directives: (1) instruction directives; and (2) proxy directives. Living Wills are "instruction directives." They specify in advance, what life support treatments you wish to accept or refuse and the circumstances in which you want your wishes implemented. These instructions serve as a guide to those responsible for your care particularly, your Health Care Proxy.
Living Wills and Health Care Proxies are different types of advance directives. In a Living Will, a person specifies in writing the type of life support treatments desired in the event they lose decision-making capacity. In cooperation with a Living Will, a Health Care Proxy requires the appointment of an agent to make those decisions. The agent is designated by the maker to make virtually all health care decisions if the maker should become incapacitated. While the Health Care Proxy is more flexible than the Living Will, it still provides written guidelines to help you Health Care Proxy make decisions. Living Wills and Health Care Proxies should be executed together to provide for total protection in the event of tragedy.
As just discussed, Living Wills and Health Care Proxies allow you to express your feelings about life support treatment, and your health care long after you become unable to convey them. Living wills for example may allow for comprehensive life-support treatment or no life-support treatment at all after the incapacitation of the patient, artificial feeding and hydration as well as the conditions of your decisions. Health Care Proxies permit the maker to appoint a trusted agent to make a wide array of health care decisions on your behalf when you are no longer able to do so. By executing a Living Will, and a Health Care Proxy, an individual can protect their right to choose. Without such a document, decisions concerning life support treatments will be left to health care professionals. Although knowledgeable and qualified to administer treatments, they cannot know, and subsequently may not respect your wishes as they pertain to life support measures.
Any adult who has the capacity to make decisions has the ability to execute a Living Will and a Health Care Proxy. For purposes of drafting either document, the State of New York presumes every adult to be competent, unless they have been adjudged incompetent. Incompetents and minors cannot execute Living Wills or Health Care Proxies.