Advance Healthcare Directives and Living Wills in Mercer

Compare your preferences with your agent designation

A living will or advance healthcare directive can communicate the care you want considered in particular circumstances. An agent designation identifies a person to make healthcare decisions on your behalf. A Tennessee Advance Directive for Health Care form addresses both an agent or alternate and healthcare preferences; the choices should be reviewed together, rather than treated as interchangeable.

Ask yourself: Do the instructions describe your values in language you would use today? Is the person you named still the person you want involved? Would an alternate be appropriate? If your written preferences and the person you named appear to point in different directions, identify the tension for discussion instead of assuming one automatically resolves it.

Make a one-page preparation sheet

Before discussing changes, prepare a short sheet that captures your current wishes and the documents that may affect them. This helps focus the conversation on decisions rather than on trying to remember what an older form said.

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• Your priorities for care, described in your own words, and any situations or trade-offs you want to discuss.
• The name of your current agent and any alternate, plus whether you still want those people in those roles.
• Copies or dates of older directives, healthcare powers of attorney, and any separate authorization concerning access to health information.
• Questions about who should receive copies and how your preferences should be communicated to people involved in your care.

Keep healthcare authority separate from other roles

A healthcare agent’s role is not the same as authority under a financial power of attorney, a court-appointed guardianship or conservatorship, or a trustee’s role. A power of attorney authorizes another person to act within the scope, duration, and limits of that document; it should not be assumed to grant every kind of authority.

Likewise, an authorization to access health information concerns information access and should not be confused with permission to make healthcare decisions. Consider each document on its own terms and ask whether the people named and the functions described fit together.

Review and coordinate your documents

Dale Law Group, PLLC assists Tennessee clients with advance healthcare directives and living wills, as well as related planning such as healthcare powers of attorney and HIPAA authorizations. The firm is based in Murfreesboro and serves Tennessee; Mercer is an unincorporated Census-designated place, not a separate city government.

Bring your preparation sheet and existing documents to discuss what should be clarified, whether older instructions need attention, and how to coordinate the directive with any separate healthcare agent or information-access document. The Tennessee form includes document-signing and copy-sharing instructions; review the applicable form and discuss questions about completing it rather than relying on an assumed signing procedure.