Getting a free durable power of attorney means putting somebody in the position of making big decisions on your behalf. In this post, we’ll look at eight difficult medical or financial choices you should brief them on so they make the right move.
Your agent’s chief responsibility when you’re incapacitated is usually to talk to your doctors and share your treatment preferences. Here are four topics you’ll need to discuss with them to make sure they follow your rules:
Your agent has to know your basic opinions on medical treatments, including which procedures or medicines you’d reject. Here are a few points to bring up:
Anything that could affect your preferred treatment is worth discussing at this stage.
Your agent is responsible for communicating if you want to be put on life support. You must pick someone who’ll fight for your decision; your loved ones might find this too difficult.
Similarly, you might want a DNR (do not resuscitate) order. This is your right to ask for — but it’s critical that you trust your agent to arrange this, even if they disagree.
Think about if you’d like mechanical ventilation, artificial nutrition, CPR, and other major types of life support. Leaving it too late may just leave your agent unsure about what to do and what you would want.
Even something as simple as which hospital you’d like to go to may be a point of discussion; the closest one might not fit your needs. Your discussions with an agent could, for example, ensure you end up in a Long-Term Acute Care Hospital.
This extends to deciding whether you’d be okay going into hospice care after treatment.
It’s entirely possible that there’ll be a situation neither of you anticipated, with questions that you and your agent never expected to answer. Your agent might have to guess what your responses would be based on other preferences.
This is another reason you should only choose someone as your agent if you’re sure they know you and will fight for what you want. Of course, they can’t always answer as you would, but they should try their best.
Power of attorney arrangements also let you give the agent control over your finances when you can’t manage them yourself. Here are four key elements of this you’ll want to discuss before you sign anything:
Your agent will have to manage your bank account(s) and use them to keep up with your typical financial obligations, including paying bills. This can also include paying for your treatment while you’re incapacitated. Other tasks they should take care of include:
Similarly, you’ll need to talk to your agent about taxes. Ideally, they’ll already have good financial acumen — you might even have separate agents for medical and financial matters.
It’s your agent’s responsibility to talk to the IRS and possibly even compile your tax returns. This means you must tell them how to gather your documents and about any deductions.
If you’re in charge of a business, you should have someone to delegate this to in the event of an emergency. You might even trust your agent enough to keep things running in your absence.
You should only leave your agent in charge if you trust them to take care of the following:
They can even take your place in partnership meetings.
Your investments won’t be on hold while you’re incapacitated. Without someone ready to sell or buy at a moment’s notice, you could miss out on many opportunities. The right agent could help you wake up to a thriving portfolio.
Your agent can even take care of your real estate properties, retirement accounts, and anything else you’d manage. Again, make sure you get someone who knows the markets you operate in, or else they might make the wrong decisions.
Your power of attorney agent can only make good financial and medical decisions if you prepare them. A customized, durable PoA form lets you write your wishes out — allowing agents to refer back to this as necessary.
