In your living will, give the name of the person to make the final decision (not just "my family")
Attorney Tom Olsen: He did a living will, a pull-the-plug document. Guess what his living will says when the time comes, I leave it up to my family members. Oh, that is so lame.
Attorney Chris Merrill: Not right, not right. No.
Tom: When we do a living will, which is standard procedure, we actually name-
Chris: Who.
Tom: -who would make that decision for you.
Chris: Correct.
Tom: I go family members well who's that going to be? Your strange kid, your brother, sister, nieces, nephews, cousins. I don't know. She goes, Tom, she did all these forms for me. She put my friend's name in all these forms. Why would she have not put her name in the living will declaration?
Chris: Why?
Tom: He didn't know and I didn't know, just lame drafting.
Chris: You're right. I find that interesting, now that you just mentioned it. When I'm reviewing old documents or just documents that clients bring in, I see that more often where they don't name a person to be in charge in the living will. My question to you is, why would any attorney not do that in the living will?
Tom: I could give you a possible answer.
Chris: Why?
Tom: The Florida Statutes gives us a form for a living will.
Chris: You're right.
Tom: When you look at that form-
Chris: Oh, it doesn't include.
Tom: -it says does not include names, just says I leave it up to my family members. Why? Lawyer being lazy copies of form out of the Florida Statutes says, "Hey, it's in the Florida Statutes must be good enough."
Chris: Oh, okay, I bet that's it.
Tom: No.
Chris: It's not good enough.
Tom: You got to go to the next level and put in there and actually name who's going to make that decision for you. Most of our clients if they're married, they're naming their spouse. There's a second choice, they would name their children. Usually, and I'm literally talking about putting their names in it. If they're doing children, usually it's by a majority decision.
Chris: Let's take it a step further on this because it's very important for listeners to hear this and understand this, and check their existing documents to make sure that it works for them. We want to make sure that it works for you our listeners. We are living will, of course, includes everything necessary by the Florida Statute. However, this work product it's very important to us that we have created a work product that we know is the best for you, our listeners. What have we done? What you just mentioned, which is we include obviously the specific people, whatever the relation to you, those specific people are the ones that you appoint to carry out your wishes.
We name that in the document. Further, what have we done? We have had our living will reviewed by several doctor clients of ours. Each time that we have done that, the doctors have also confirmed for us ours is right on. That it's very important what we have done to specifically name those who you want to be in charge in that document. Ours has been reviewed by doctors because that's important to us so that we again, make sure that we're giving you the best living will that you could have.
Tom: Again, the living will is a document-
Chris: Pull the plug.
Tom: -where you're asked that you don't want to be kept alive by artificial means, pull the plug. Often people will say, "Tom, well I want a DNR too." I say, "Look, the DNR has got to be signed by your doctor." When you do your estate planning documents with the Olsen Law Group, we put everything in a notebook, nice and organized. Under the tab for the living will there's a one-page sheet on DNRs telling you the client what they are, what they're for, and how to get one from your doctor.
Chris: Correct. We want to give you that information. There are three healthcare-related documents in the State of Florida. One is a DNR that you must get from your doctor, two is a healthcare surrogate power of attorney that we can prepare, and the third is the living will that we've just been talking about that we prepare for you.
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