Kelley Smith at CarePartners Senior Living joins Suzanne to present a checklist of items to review each year regarding your legal paperwork, to make sure everything is up to date.
Review your powers of attorney documents: make sure your wishes are still accurate, because your viewpoints may have changed.
If you have a healthcare directive, make sure it’s filled out in detail, because it can save a lot of heartache. Does your doctor have a copy of your healthcare directive? Is everything that matters to you somewhere that it can get to medical records when needed.
If you have a POLST form (Physician Orders for Life Sustaining Treatment), or a DNR (Do Not Resuscitate Order), is it up on the fridge where paramedics could find it, or if you’re in an assisted living facility, is the staff aware of your values and what matters most to you? They will ask a lot of these questions when you check in. There’s a reason behind why every piece of paper is asked for and needed by an assisted living community – they need to know who to contact depending on circumstances.
Kelley and Suzanne remind everyone that you should talk to an elder law attorney or an estate planning attorney about getting paperwork filled out.
