Divorce is a time where many things change, and many issues must be addressed. Divorce is also the time where many people must face the financial problems that have been ignored for years. It is really important to check, understand, and protect your credit. Check out Ask The Advisor’s article: How Will Divorce Affect My Credit? for some helpful information.
Resources
Monticello Estate Planning Attorney Answers: What to put in your Health Care Directive
Many people wonder what they can put in their Health Care Directive. The answer to that question really is, what do you want to put in it?
Your Health Care Directive can be as specific or as general as you want. You can appoint health care agent(s) and alternate health care agent(s) and specify if they can act independently or must act jointly. You can explain your general goals, values, and beliefs that impact your thoughts about health care. You can provide specific health care instructions regarding medical treatments, pain relief, nutrition and hydration, and mental health treatments. You can have special provisions for pregnancy. A Health Care Directive can also specify where you want to receive medical care or state your preference for a court-appointed guardian or conservator. And finally, you can use your Health Care Directive to state your preference as to donations of organs and tissues, cremation or burial, and funeral arrangements. What you do with a Health Care Directive is really up to you, because YOUR DECISIONS MATTER.
For information on Health Care Directives specifically in Minnesota, check out the Minnesota Department of Health’s Questions and Answers on Health Care Directives. Besides the general what is a health care directive and how to make one, there is also a good list of what you can put in a health care directive.
Healthy Separation: 100 Tips and Resources to Get You Through a Divorce
If you are going through a divorce, check out Christina Laun’s posting on The Love Coach, “Health Separation: 100 Tips and Resources to Get You Through a Divorce.” This is a very comprehensive list, which includes 13 tips (my personal favorites are: “Accept that it’s over,” “Get to know the laws of your state,” and “Be reasonable.”), and several articles, blogs, online support groups and forums to help you get through the divorce, learn about the legal and financial aspects of divorce, help your children deal with divorce, and start a fresh life after divorce.
Consumer’s Tool Kit for Health Care Advance Planning
In honor of National Healthcare Decisions Day (NHDD), Wednesday April 16, 2008, the next couple weeks will be devoted to providing information and sharing resources for advance health care planning. Please join me for my Monticello NHDD event or contact participating organizations in your state to find a local event. Check out this page for all the postings on NHDD and advance care planning.
Perhaps the most comprehensive online resource for advance care planning is the ABA Commission on Law and Aging’s Consumer’s Tool Kit for Health Care Advance Planning. Advance care planning is a difficult process. It requires you to do some soul searching; think about your values; contemplate serious illness, injury, and death; consider numerous situations and possible treatments; and share your thoughts, feelings, and wishes with family and health care providers. The ABA Commission on Law and Aging attempts to make this an easier process by providing 10 “tools” to help you make decisions on advanced care planning and talk to your family and doctors. These tools include things to think about, various quizes to help you make decisions and communicate them to others, and scripts to get the conversation started. The tool kit also includes a guide for health care agents and information on other resources. If you are having trouble getting started with your advance health care planning, I suggest you take a look at the tool kit.
The 10 Tools of the Tool Kit are:
1. How to Select Your Health Care Agent or Proxy
2. Are Some Conditions Worse than Death?
3. How do You Weigh Odds of Survival?
4. Personal Priorities and Spiritual Values Important to Your Medical Decisions
5. After Death Decisions to Think About Now
6. Conversation Scripts: Getting Past the Resistance
7. The Proxy Quiz for Family & Physician
8. What to do After Signing Your Health Care Advance Directive
10 Legal Myths About Advance Medical Directives
In honor of National Healthcare Decisions Day (NHDD), Wednesday April 16, 2008, the next couple weeks will be devoted to providing information and sharing resources for advance health care planning. Please join me for my Monticello NHDD event or contact participating organizations in your state to find a local event. Check out this page for all the postings on NHDD and advance care planning.
The American Bar Association’s Commission on Legal Problems of the Elderly has a great article on myths about advance medical directives. Among these myths are “Advance Directives are a legal tool for old people,” “If I do not have an Advance Directive, I can rely on my family to make my health care decisions when I am unable to make decisions for myself,” and “An Advance Directive Means ‘Don’t Treat.”
To read about these and the seven other myths, check out the full article, 10 Legal Myths About Advance Medical Directives.
Great Publications from the Office of the Minnesota Attorney General
If you haven’t already, check out the various brochures published by the Minnesota Attorney General, available on their website in PDF format. Many of these brochures address some sort of scam (i.e. employment scams). There are brochures on credit and debt issues, buying, selling, and leasing cars, and landlord/tenant or homeowner issues. There are also brochures on health care and legal issues. Of particular interest is the Probate and Planning Guide, which provides a lot of good information on wills, probate, health care directives, powers of attorney, living trusts, and guardianships.
