An advance directive is a good idea for adults of any age or in any state of health. If you become seriously sick or hurt, you may not be able to tell your doctors the kind of medical care you want, or where you want to receive it. However, the best way to tell doctors and caregivers of your wishes is to write them down as well as designate a health care agent, and the most safe and legal way to do this is with an advance directive.
Having a completed Advance Health Care Directive on file helps your health care team know who to contact if an emergency leaves you unable to speak for yourself. It also ensures that your health care team will be informed of and able to honor your health care preferences.
Life Care Planning
This is where Kaiser Permanente Life Care Planning can help. In life care planning, you choose someone to represent your health care wishes if there’s a time in the future when you can’t speak, and you also decide what you want that person to say. You fill out and submit an Advance Health Care Directive, a legal document that lets you do the following:
- Designate a health care agent—a person who can voice your health care choices in the event you cannot communicate. This is also known as “durable power of attorney for health care” or “medical durable power of attorney.”
- Provide instructions about your medical care in situations in which you are unable to make your own decisions.
- Express your values, hopes, and priorities.
Beginning earlier this year, Kaiser Permanente now offers a new way to get your Advance Health Care Directive on file—via upload to kp.org. The filing process is easy.
Four steps to completion:
- Download your Advance Health Care Directive on kp.org/advancedirective.
- Save the form on your computer and print it out to complete it.
- Sign your completed document, and have it signed by two witnesses.
- Scan your document and then return to kp.org and click on Medical Record and then Life Care Planning to upload your completed file (documents must be in a PDF, JPEG, or PNG format).
If you have problems uploading your document, call Member Services at 800-777-7902 (TTY 711) or bring it a Kaiser Permanente Medical Center.
Once uploaded, your Advance Health Care Directive will be reviewed, and if it’s incomplete, you will receive a notification. Otherwise, the document will be accepted and placed on file. Note that if you assigned someone as your caregiver on kp.org, that person will also be able to see your Advance Health Care Directive.
Plan tomorrow today
Be prepared for what comes next—visit kp.org to fill out your Advance Health Care Directive today.
