You could focus your estate plan only on what happens when you pass away. But it will be far better if you also consider what happens if you become seriously ill or are involved in a nasty accident.
If the accident or illness leaves you unable to communicate with doctors, then the doctors may struggle to know what action to take. It’s not that they won’t understand the medical options available, but rather that for the times there is a choice of actions, they won’t know which of the options you would prefer.
An advance health care directive can make things simpler for the doctors to do the things you would want. Here is what you can do.
Nominate a spokesperson
Imagine a situation where your family is gathered around your hospital bed and some of them feel the doctors should go ahead with a particular operation while others think they should not. If you appoint someone as health care power of attorney, it will be their voice that counts. The doctors would listen to them, rather than the others. This can help prevent an already stressful situation from becoming even more stressful and reduce one person trying to pull rank over another.
Leave specific instructions
You can reduce the occasions when the doctors will need to ask someone to decide by making that decision in advance yourself. You could write things in the document to clarify your choices. For example, you can say you would want to be resuscitated, but would not want to receive a donor organ.
Spending time to properly document your choices now can save those you love time, stress and guilt later.