Christy Bieber has a JD from UCLA School of Law and began her career as a college instructor and textbook author. She has been writing full time for over a decade with a focus on making financial and legal topics understandable and fun. Her work has.
Christy Bieber, J.D. ContributorChristy Bieber has a JD from UCLA School of Law and began her career as a college instructor and textbook author. She has been writing full time for over a decade with a focus on making financial and legal topics understandable and fun. Her work has.
Written By Christy Bieber, J.D. ContributorChristy Bieber has a JD from UCLA School of Law and began her career as a college instructor and textbook author. She has been writing full time for over a decade with a focus on making financial and legal topics understandable and fun. Her work has.
Christy Bieber, J.D. ContributorChristy Bieber has a JD from UCLA School of Law and began her career as a college instructor and textbook author. She has been writing full time for over a decade with a focus on making financial and legal topics understandable and fun. Her work has.
Contributor Jeffrey Johnson, J.D. Deputy Legal EditorJeffrey Johnson has written novels and movies in addition to legal analyses of eminent domain and immigration law. His experience in writing engaging fiction makes him uniquely capable of making the most dry and academic legal topics interesting (or.
Jeffrey Johnson, J.D. Deputy Legal EditorJeffrey Johnson has written novels and movies in addition to legal analyses of eminent domain and immigration law. His experience in writing engaging fiction makes him uniquely capable of making the most dry and academic legal topics interesting (or.
Jeffrey Johnson, J.D. Deputy Legal EditorJeffrey Johnson has written novels and movies in addition to legal analyses of eminent domain and immigration law. His experience in writing engaging fiction makes him uniquely capable of making the most dry and academic legal topics interesting (or.
Jeffrey Johnson, J.D. Deputy Legal EditorJeffrey Johnson has written novels and movies in addition to legal analyses of eminent domain and immigration law. His experience in writing engaging fiction makes him uniquely capable of making the most dry and academic legal topics interesting (or.
| Deputy Legal Editor
Updated: May 31, 2024, 11:41am
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No one wants to think about becoming incapacitated and unable to communicate their preferences for medical care. But it’s important to consider this possibility as it could happen to anyone. You don’t want decisions for your future healthcare left to chance, so you should provide instructions for what should happen if the worst occurs.
There are different tools you can use to do that.
Learn about a living will vs. advance directive to understand how each works and decide which is right for you.
A living will is a type of advance directive. It explains your wishes for specific types of medical care. You specify if you want to receive or decline types of care should you be unable to communicate at the time treatment decisions must be made.
Living wills generally address extraordinary interventions including:
You specify which treatments you want to be performed and under what circumstances. For example, you might specify that if you are nearing the end of your life or have certain progressive health issues such as Alzheimer’s, you would prefer to allow an infection to be left untreated while allowing measures that will keep you comfortable.
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There are some big benefits of making a living will for future health decisions. Here are the biggest advantages:
There are also some downsides:
Advance directives are also used to provide instructions about what should happen in case of incapacity. But they are broader than a living will.
A living will is a type of advance directive, but there are others, including a medical power of attorney. For example:
There are some benefits to an advance directive, including the following:
There are also some disadvantages of advance directives, including the following:
There are a few big differences to be aware of between an advance directive and a living will. Here’s what they are:
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Ultimately, if you create a living will, you have created one type of advance directive. But you don’t need to restrict yourself to that document alone.
Generally, at a minimum, you’ll want to combine a living will with a durable medical power of attorney because your living will cannot address every possible situation. If a choice about your care must be made that your living will doesn’t address, a durable power of attorney ensures that you get to decide who will make that decision.
An experienced estate planning lawyer can help you identify all the advance directives you may wish to create to ensure control of your future ultimately rests with you.
A living will is one of several types of advance directives. It is best to create multiple types of advance directives. You should have a living will, which specifies what kinds of extraordinary interventions you accept or decline if you’re incapacitated. But you should also have other advance directives including a durable medical power of attorney that allows you to name someone to act on your behalf if a decision must be made that the living will doesn’t address.
Advance directives are a broad group of tools used to specify what should happen if you become incapacitated. They can include a durable healthcare power of attorney, psychiatric advance directives, and a living will. Having a broader set of instructions is generally better as it makes it more likely your wishes will be respected. However, there is more time, cost and complexity involved in drafting multiple advance directives offering instructions in case of incapacity than if you just create a living will alone.
The difference between advance directives and a living will is that advance directives can offer more opportunities to express your preferences in case of future incapacity. While a living will simply allows you to express your wishes on whether to approve or deny certain extraordinary medical interventions, other advance directives do more. For example, you can make a living will and also designate an agent through a durable medical power of attorney to make decisions on your behalf that are not addressed by the living will.
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By Christy Bieber, J.D.
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ContributorChristy Bieber has a JD from UCLA School of Law and began her career as a college instructor and textbook author. She has been writing full time for over a decade with a focus on making financial and legal topics understandable and fun. Her work has appeared on Forbes, CNN Underscored Money, Investopedia, Credit Karma, The Balance, USA Today, and Yahoo Finance, among others.
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