Financial & Medical Directives
The prospect of losing one’s ability to make informed financial and medical decisions is a frightening one. Nobody wants to be open to exploitation at a particularly vulnerable time of life. At Cairns Law Firm, we help clients draft and adopt financial and medical directives — such as a power of attorney, a healthcare power of attorney and a living will — so they can make their wishes known and choose trusted people to oversee their affairs.
Understanding Financial and Medical Directives
A power of attorney allows you to pick an agent and grant that agent certain powers. It can be a general power of attorney, giving your agent full legal authority, or a special power of attorney, limited to a particular area such as medical or financial decisions.
A durable power of attorney is one that continues to operate even if you lose the ability to make informed decisions on your own.
If you are concerned about end-of-life medical decisions there are two documents to discuss. A living will allows you to make your wishes known regarding end of life medical decisions and a healthcare power of attorney allows you to have an agent make health decisions anytime you cannot and provides the agent authority under the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA).
When you need an attorney to help you protect yourself through the use of financial and medical directives you are invited to contact us and speak to an experienced lawyer who will help you put documents in place so that you are protected.
