Estate Planning

What do I do with my Health Care Power of Attorney and Living Will?

By Gregory Herman-Giddens

So, you've been a responsible adult and have recently completed your estate plan.  As part of your plan, you have a Health Care Power of Attorney, Living Will, and HIPAA Authorization.  Now what?

Here's what I recommend with regard to those documents:

• Keep the originals at home in a place that your Health Care Agent knows about.
• Provide a copy to your Health Care Agent, physician and hospital.
• Register the documents with one of these services:

                     Legal Directives, LLC - Annual fee, wallet card issued.  Available through certain law firms at a reduced cost.  Automatically provide copies to your physician if you wish.

                     Docubank - Annual fee, wallet card issued.  Available through certain law firms at a reduced cost.

                     U.S. Living Will Registry - No charge, but must be submitted through a "Community   Partner"

                     North Carolina Secretary of State - One time fee of $10 per document.  The cheapest, but a "no-frills" version.

Registration is especially important for those who travel a lot.  Folks who regularly spend extended periods in other states should consider having advance directives prepared for that state as well, taking care not to revoke the primary state's forms.

Full post as published by North Carolina Estate Planning Blog on March 27, 2009 (boomark / email).