Tips for Planning End-of-Life Care

The best time to make decisions about end-of-life matters is while you are well. The following tips may help guide you through some of the important issues.

• Explore and consider your own feelings and beliefs about the quality of life, illness and pain, spirituality, dignity and comfort during the dying experience.
• Read, listen, learn. Much current information about end-of-life care is available through Web sites and libraries. Enhance your own understanding of important issues regarding end-of-life care decisions.
• Talk to family and friends about your decisions and thoughts.
• Carefully select someone to be your Health Care Proxy who is willing and able to carry out your end-of-life care wishes in the event that you are unable to do so. Make your desires concerning your own end-of-life care known to this individual. Then complete a Health Care Proxy Form, keep it with your will and other important papers, and give a copy to your Health Care Proxy.
• Create a Living Will to express any "advance directives," such as your wishes regarding the use of extreme life supporting measures, in case you become terminally ill and unable to express your desires. Share the existence and location of your Living Will with your appointed Health Care Proxy, family members and physician.
• Carry a signed and dated Health Care Proxy card on your person at all times.
• Communicate the patient's desire to use hospice care and the existence of a written Health Care Proxy and/or Living Will to the physician or health care provider in the early planning stages.
• When considering hospice care, inquire as to what, where and how services are provided and the costs of those services. Private insurance may provide services at different levels. Be aware of the patient's available coverage levels so that workable options can be explored.