Gathering Your Team

This month, we are working on advance care planning. Dust off that paperwork and review, update, share, and discuss.

So maybe you have your primary health care agent chosen, maybe you’re not sure yet. For some, it can be an obvious choice, for others, it can be overwhelming to ask an individual to accept such responsibility. Wherever you are in the decision-making process, that's where you are. An advance directive gives you the opportunity to choose a primary agent as well as multiple alternate agents. If a primary agent is not available, willing or able to make decisions, or no longer in a patient’s life, alternate agents are called upon. In theory and on paper, this is a linear and hierarchical process: the primary is contacted first, then the first alternate, etc. If a family disagrees about care, the primary’s voice is honored. In practice, the primary is still…