JustCare

Tag: Living will

  • What to do after someone you love dies

    What to do after someone you love dies

    Losing someone you love can be extraordinarily wrenching. And, taking care of all the things that need getting done can be tough. As always, having a buddy–a friend, family member or trusted aide–to help you can be invaluable, easing the stress and keeping you focused. Here’s what to do after someone you love dies.

    1. If your loved one dies at home, you will need someone to pronounce the person dead. Hospice staff can make the pronouncement if the person is getting hospice care. Otherwise, you’ll need to call 911. Be sure to have the person’s living will on hand if it has a do not resuscitate request.
    2. Contact family and friends and anyone else close to the person. Make sure that someone tends to pets, reads mail and, if appropriate, cleans out the refrigerator. Discuss your loved one’s preferences–e.g. a headstone, cemetery–whether you want a gathering after the funeral and how to let people know about it.
    3. Contact the funeral home to move the body and arrange for burial or cremation. (Here are six tips for choosing a funeral home if your loved one had not already done so.) Write an obituary to send to the local paper. Be sure to get at least a dozen copies of the death certificate, from the funeral home or your state’s office of Vital Statistics, to send to banks, government agencies and others who require it. Keep in mind that once you notify these agencies, they will freeze your loved one’s accounts.
    4. Locate the person’s will and take it to the appropriate office to be probated. Your loved one’s attorney, if there is one, should be able to help. The executor of the person’s estate will be in charge.
    5. Keep a file with all of the person’s records, including will, birth certificate, death certificates, insurance policies, automobile titles, mortgages, leases, credit card accounts, bank accounts, investment accounts, bills to pay. Keep in mind that the person might need to file an income tax return.
    6. Contact your loved one’s bank, Social Security, life insurance company, and any other entities from which your loved one got benefits, as well as all clubs and memberships. (Note that Social Security should pay survivor benefits to a surviving spouse.) You should also notify the three credit bureaus of the death to prevent identity theft and request information about all of the person’s debts.
    7. Contact the electric company, phone, TV, and internet services, and other service providers to cancel email accounts and stop other services, if appropriate. Also contact the registry of motor vehicles to change titles on any vehicles in your loved one’s name. Cancel your loved one’s driver’s license. You might also notify the board of elections.

    For more information, visit Consumer Reports and AARP.

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  • What care do you want if you become seriously ill? Talk to your doctor

    What care do you want if you become seriously ill? Talk to your doctor

    One fourth or so of Medicare annual spending–about $33,500 a person–goes to the cost of care for the 1.8 million people over 65 who die each year.  The cost of their care is high largely because they often have complex conditions, and two-thirds of them die in the hospital.What care do you want if you become seriously ill? Medicare now covers advance care planning to ensure that older adults have their care wishes honored in the days, weeks and months before they die.

    Medicare will cover the full cost of a visit with your doctor to discuss your end-of-life wishes as part of your Medicare annual wellness visit. If you do a separate trip to the doctor, traditional Medicare covers 80 percent of the cost. If you’re in a Medicare Advantage plan, call the plan to find out your out-of-pocket costs. Here are six reasons why you and your loved ones should do advance care planning and create advance directives.

    The data suggest that most people do not plan ahead–through advance care planning–and do not understand their care options. For example, most people prefer to die at home if they are terminally ill. But, they often have not had the chance to decide their care wishes or to share them with trusted family members, doctors or others in their social network. And, they end up dying in the hospital. So, ask your loved ones about end of life care.

    Hospitals and nursing homes are required to ask patients on admission whether they have advance directives–living wills and health care proxies–under the Patient Self-Determination Act of 1991.   These care facilities must keep a record of whether patients have advance directives in their files. But, patients are not required to have them.

    About 40 percent of people over 65 have not done advance care planning and do not have advance directives. Each state has its own law regarding advance directives.  To find out how to get advance directives for your state as well as information on how to complete them, check out Just Care’s get help page here.

    Medicare also covers hospice services, including pain management, palliative care to offer comfort, pain and other symptoms management for people with complex and chronic conditions, and up to five days of respite care for caregivers. Hospice services are usually available in patients’ homes. Today, more than four in ten people with Medicare elect hospice care, more than double the rate from 2000 (23 percent).

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  • Honoring a wish to die in peace

    Honoring a wish to die in peace

    It’s critically important that you share your end-of-life wishes with your doctors and the people you love.  It is equally important that you complete and sign a written health care proxy and living will so that when you cannot speak for yourself, your end-of-life wishes will be honored.

    The experience of Luz Salazar Garcia speaks volumes. In 2003, at 76, Garcia had advanced diabetes that robbed her of her eyesight. She also had advanced glaucoma, high blood pressure and neuropathy. Her husband and daughter became her caregivers 24 hours a day at her Los Angeles-area home.

    Two years later, Garcia was hospitalized with kidney failure, breast cancer and multiple other conditions. Garcia was ready to die, and she let her family know.  But, a doctor persuaded her husband that he should try to keep her alive through kidney dialysis. Against Garcia’s wishes, the doctors went ahead with dialysis.

    Garcia was enraged. She shouted to make her wishes known. And, she resisted the efforts to treat her.  She kept removing the oxygen mask. She died shortly thereafter. She spent her final moments struggling to stop the treatment, not in peace as she had wanted.

    The lesson is clear that without a written directive, doctors and family members may intervene in your care in ways you would not want. To learn more about Luz Garcia’s story and end-of-life educational initiatives, click here. Here are six reasons why you and your loved ones should create advance directives, as well as a helpful toolkit of advance care planning resources that includes Spanish and Chinese translations. And, here’s a short Jon Stewart video with Atul Gawande explaining why you should ask your loved ones about their end-of-life wishes.