Nicole: An advanced directive is also called a living will. It is not a type of will at all. It’s actually a medical document that says, if two doctors say that I am in a persistent vegetative state, how many days do I want to be on life support? You answer that question along with a handful of other questions. For example, can anybody override your number of days? We have a lot of people come in, they have filled one of these out before, they filled it out a few years ago, or maybe they got it off of LegalZoom or Rocket Lawyer or one of those.

Every time I look through them, they’re not asking as many questions as the forms that lawyers have. You don’t want to just say, “Keep me comfortable.” Doctors have to keep you comfortable no matter what, we want to know how many days, we want to know what type of machines do you want on, do you not want on for what reasons? Things like that. Doctors have their own liability to be concerned about. When this advanced directive, if you don’t fill it out, your family’s going to argue about what to do. This just provides an extra layer of guidance for your family and for the doctors to make sure that your wishes are actually followed.