You’ve established your Will with your Estate Planning attorney, but what do those extra documents do for you? Welcome back everybody to another Finance Friday. As we’ve done before, we like to cover Estate Planning tips during the summer for 2 reasons:
- People are traveling during the summer and its always a good idea to be prepared in the event of an unexpected situation.
- People that aren’t traveling, have time to create or update their Estate Plans.
Besides your will, there are additional documents that are given to you that cover different situations. Here are 3 different documents and their health-related situations:
- HIPAA Authorization – This allows for your named Agent to have constant access to private medical records.
- Directive to Physicians (Living Will) – This allows you to communicate your medical treatment wishes in the event you are terminally ill and are unable to make your wishes known due to illness or injury.
- Medical Power of Attorney – This allows your named Agent the authority to make any and all healthcare decisions for you, in agreement with your wishes, when you are no longer capable of making them yourself.
Something to keep in mind is that while you can have different agents managing different situations, the best practice is to designate 1 to 2 different people as agents. Medical decisions are difficult and emotional. You will want to limit how many people are involved in the decision-making process. Remember to submit your questions and thoughts on our discussion to hector@hrcfin.com. Don’t forget to follow HRC Financial on Facebook and LinkedIn for more Finance Friday Tips and Insights.
Thank you again and have a wonderful weekend!!