Even though advance directives have been promoted by health professionals for nearly 50 years, only 1 in 3 U.S. adults have them. This means that 2 out of every 3 adults will have no say in the medical treatment they receive, if they ever become too ill or are unable to make medical decisions for themselves in the future.
An advance healthcare directive is a legal document that explains how you want medical decisions about you to be made if you cannot make the decisions yourself. It lets your health care team and loved ones know what kind of health care you want, or who you want to make decisions for you when you can't.
<aside> 💡 **It also allows you to decide several important factors ahead of time, including:
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👨🏼⚕️ And under the 1990 Patient Self-Determination Act (PSDA), hospitals, skilled nursing facilities, home health agencies, hospice programs, and Health Maintenance Organizations are legally required to recognize the advance directive and honor the patient's wishes.
‼️ It's important to note that advance directives only apply to health care decisions and do not affect financial or money matters. These decisions can be included in separate documents such as a living will or power of attorney.
There are a variety of reasons that prevent people from making advance healthcare directives. In some cases, people (especially those who are healthy) just aren't aware of what an advance directive is or feel the need to create one. In other cases, people just don't know where to start, and they don't want to pay hundreds of dollars to hire a lawyer to write it for them either.
Which is why we've created an affordable solution to writing your own advance healthcare directives. Through our new Advance Healthcare Directives product, you can generate your own legally recognized advance directive so that you have full control over the end-of-life care you receive.