Christy Bieber has a JD from UCLA School of Law and began her career as a college instructor and textbook author. She has been writing full time for over a decade with a focus on making financial and ...

States generally allow a person (principal) to appoint another person (agent) to make health care decisions, receive protected health information, or both on the principal’s behalf. In many states, ...

It’s a common hope that most people share: that their end-of-life wishes will be respected if something happened and they couldn’t make their own health care decisions. Yet only about a third of ...

Imagine that your elderly father's emphysema has worsened dramatically. You're worried. If he becomes too ill to breathe on his own, what would he want for himself? How much should doctors intervene?

Advance directives enable individuals to exercise control over their futures and ensure that the care they receive at the end of their lives is pursuant to their wishes. Yet, the majority of ...

With over 35 years as a dedicated physician, I've witnessed the gift given to loved ones left behind when an advance directive is completed and available for healthcare professionals to follow in the ...

More and more Americans say they want a “good” death, which usually means dying peacefully at home, surrounded by loved ones. Documents called advance directives can help them achieve that goal by ...

Efforts to promote the completion of advance directives implicitly assume that completion rates of these documents, which help ensure care consistent with people’s preferences in the event of ...