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Estate planning 101: Powers-of-attorney (Part 2)
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A healthcare catastrophe comes as a thief in the night. One never knows when it will strike. For my beloved family member, a severe stroke crippled him as the car was warming up to take a trip up north while he brushed his teeth—he’s never driven the car since. Thankfully, he had his Power-of-Attorney for Healthcare executed properly so his wife could control the care he was given. You can bet Walter Cronkite, at the age of 92, had this document in place knowing at his advanced age, he would most likely be unable to care for himself as the end of his life neared. And Brittany Spears’ case is one we all heard about for her lack of appointing someone as her attorney for healthcare.
As written in Part 1 of this article series, there are several types of Powers-of-Attorney, including general or specific, financial and healthcare. If you are not a minor under your parents’ care, you will require these documents to make sure your wishes are addressed and carried out by someone of your choosing. Wealth has nothing to do with it; your health IS wealth in a manner of speaking. Make sure you keep control of it.
The healthcare power-of-attorney differs from the financial power-of-attorney. This document gives someone you appoint the authority to make health care decisions for you in the event you are unable to make them for yourself. The power of attorney applies in all situations in which you are unable to make health care decisions for yourself, not just when you are terminally ill. The healthcare durable power of attorney you need to create should only become effective upon your incapacity. It will give broad Powers of health care decisions to whomever you have named as your attorney in fact. In addition, unless you direct otherwise, this document gives your attorney-in-fact the power after you die to:
1. Authorize an autopsy;
2. Donate body parts thereof for transplant or therapeutic or educational or scientific purposes; and
3. Direct the disposition of your remains.
Why is this document so important? No one has the legal authority to act for a family member if that individual is unconscious or incompetent unless they have a power-of-attorney to do so. Even parents of adult children cannot authorize emergency treatment for them without a power-of-attorney. If no one has been appointed as your attorney-in-fact, it is up to the courts to make decisions on your behalf. So without this document, decisions as minor as choosing to have your mother wear her own nightgowns in her hospital bed or as serious as an election to have surgery would be out of your hands. It would be in the hands of the doctor assigned to her case.
Again, here is my disclosure. I am not an attorney nor do I want to be. Dispensing legal advice is their bailiwick. It is up to you to get these documents drafted by an attorney for their accuracy and effectiveness. If you choose to do-it-yourself, I highly recommend that they be reviewed by an attorney to make sure they grant the powers you want your trusted attorney-in-fact to have, or the reverse—to limit those powers. If you don’t have them reviewed, you will run the risk of finding out their ineffectiveness after the tragedy strikes when it is too late. At that point, you’ll be in the court system making your case at expense I’m sure you never saw coming.
© Start Smart Advisor™, Inc.
For more info: Check out this story on Brittany Spears’ mental health issues requiring a guardianship http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/02/01/britneys-dad-named-her-gu_n_84543.html, and another story about the inability to gain medical records of one’s mother http://www.elderlawanswers.com/resources/article.asp?id=6722§ion=4&state=,
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Personal Financial Planning ·
Financial Advice ·
Estate Planning ·
Family Planning ·
Legacy
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