2015 Edition - The practical guide to Health Care Advance Directives

USA BEST BOOK AWARDS WINNER! What you’ve heard is true. You need Health Care Advance Directives. Would you like to know why? In her award-winning 2006 book, "Last things first, just in case," attorney Jo Kline Cebuhar first addressed the approaching crisis surrounding aging and end-of-life care in America. The perfect storm she predicted is now peeking over America's horizon: • America's dramatically aging population • The dwindling financial and human resources available to address their needs • Our pervasive lack of health literacy. As the patient in the patient-provider relationship, only you can preserve your right to informed consent and autonomy by taking the steps necessary to achieve health literacy and be a more skilled and effective decision maker. Only you can prepare your trusted loved ones to act as informed substitute decision makers, if the need ever arises. As importantly, only you can achieve the health literacy needed to do the best job possible as an advocate for someone else. Considering, communicating and documenting your choice of a substitute decision maker and a process for shared decision making is a key element of achieving and practicing effective health literacy. Bringing together legal expertise, engaging stories and a plain-spoken narrative, Jo helps readers prepare to face the unique legal and medical challenges of death and dying in America. This user-friendly guide to creating and sharing effective health care advance directives includes: • The Four Simple Steps: Education, Delegation, Communication and Documentation. • The importance of a health care proxy and how to choose the most qualified advocate. • "Lightbulb moments!"—tips and shortcuts for effective advance health care planning. The right time to make a plan for managing health care and end-of-life care is while you still can. The time is now. The International Association for Hospice and Palliative Care: "This book is written for the lay person and is by far the best and clearest that I have seen. If someone, anywhere—not just the USA—wants a book to explain what Advance Directives are all about, why they need them, and how to (and how not to) go about doing it, then I would be happy to recommend this book." - Dr. Roger Woodruff, Lifetime Board Member of IAHPC