Also known as a Living Will or Durable Power of Attorney for Healthcare. These documents allow you to choose the medical care you want if you are not able to speak for yourself and designate the person you want to make those choices for you. Talking with your doctor, family, and friends and putting your decisions in writing are important.

The Admitting Department can give you or your family members additional information on advance directives at any time, and help you obtain these documents if you don’t already have them. If you already have a Living Will or Durable Power of Attorney for HealthCare, please speak with your doctor about specific orders that will need to be placed in your medical record. Bring a copy to the hospital if you have either one of these documents.

We strongly encourage you to complete an Advance Directive.

Hi, my name is Kat Sigafoose. I’m the Director of Patient Access at Tahoe Forest Health System, and I’m here today to talk to you about advanced directives. Tahoe Forest Health System encourages patients to be an active participant in decisions about their medical care. We provide adult patients information in regards to their right to formulate an advanced directive concerning their healthcare decisions.

You do have the right to formulate an advanced directive, declaration, or a durable power of attorney. You do not have to wait until you’re sick to formulate an advanced directive, and really we do want you to formulate an advanced directive prior to you getting sick, having a hospital admission, or having to go to a nursing home. You can use an advanced healthcare directive to say who you want to speak for you or what kind of treatment you want done.

The document is referred to as advanced because you should be putting this in place prior to when healthcare decisions have to be made, and directives because you’re stating who you want to speak for you and what you want done. You can make an advanced directive so long as you are 18 years or older. I would recommend this to my friends and my siblings as well as my parents. This really does help with the burden that may be put on your loved ones.

You can obtain your advanced directive forms from your local state website as well as the Registration Department at Tahoe Forest Health System. Information in regards to an advanced directive will be provided to you within 24 hours of admission to one of our hospitals. Upon admission you will also be asked if you have an advanced directive, and this will be documented in your medical record. If you do have an advanced directive, it’s really important that you furnish this to our medical records department so we can have that on file for you in the event that clinical staff needs to refer to your advanced directive.

If you have any further questions in regards to advanced directives, contact Tahoe Forest’s social services at (530) 582-3268.

California residents: while state law requires certain provisions to appear in your health care directive, there is no single form in use to document your wishes.
https://calhospital.org/file/advance-health-care-directive/

Nevada residents can download forms from:
https://www.caringinfo.org/wp-content/uploads/Nevada.pdf