Episode 42: Healthcare Power of Attorney Part I

Welcome to this week’s Wisdom and Wealth Podcast. This week we begin a four part series with Sarah Duey, JD, CTFA, CAPⓇ, AEPⓇand Tom Fridrich, JD, CLU, ChFC on Healthcare Power of Attorney. In this first part of our discussion we discuss what a HC POA is, what it specifically does, whether or not a “living will is sufficient”?  Who should be your Health Care Agent? 

Please let us know what you think of this week’s episode and also if there are additional questions you have that we did not cover! 

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JOSH KLOOZ, CFP®, MBA
WEALTH ADVISOR

Phone 281.719.0036
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Fax 281.719.0156
jklooz@carsonwealth.com

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Music by bensound.com

Transcript

Joshua Klooz  0:00  
Welcome to the wisdom and wealth podcast. I'm your host Josh Klooz. Each week, I'll be leading a series of conversations with our team here at Carson wealth, which are designed to equip our listeners with the helpful insights necessary to simplify the critical decision points of life. We believe that true wealth is the thing Money cannot buy, and death cannot take away. Furthermore, we also believe our calling is to enable others to fulfill their own. And to that end, we end up

Today's conversation centereds around simplifying your medical power of attorney plan. Today I'm joined by Sarah Dewey and Tom Frederick from our team in Omaha. Sara earned her Juris Doctor degree from the University of Nebraska and is a certified trust and financial advisor, a chartered advisor in philanthropy, and an accredited estate planner. She currently serves as the vice president of our Trust Services team also holds a JD from the University of Nebraska and holds the chartered financial consultant and chartered life underwriter designations. He currently serves as a senior planner on our advanced solution team. Most importantly, both these folks want to use their shared knowledge to enrich the lives of others for their benefit. Welcome in everybody.


Joshua Klooz  1:26  
So as we navigate this process, we want to make sure that we understand what we're wanting to achieve and understand the powers and and limitations of the document in place for this medical power or healthcare power of attorney. So what exactly is a health care power of attorney, Sara, would you mind just giving us some broad parameters of kind of what our left and our right limit is?

Sarah Duey  1:54  
Sure, a power of attorney is a document, you're going to be appointing somebody in that document to be your agent, you probably appoint somebody to be your backup if that person can't be your agent. And that agent is going to be the person who's empowered to voice decisions for you if you're incapable of making them yourself. So we could also people talk about it being a health care proxy, but typically, it's an H POA or health care power of attorney. Okay.

Joshua Klooz  2:27  
From the outset, you know, one of the you just kind of ideas that is floating out there are all here is, hey, I haven't Living Well, isn't that sufficient? What would be your your thoughts around someone that comes to me saying something similar.

Sarah Duey  2:48  
You can't have the living will as the standalone document, because the purpose of the living will is to outline those treatment options that you want to have performed on you. You're not giving somebody the power, you're going over what those treatment options and your choices are. So it's the living was the document that states your preferences for treatment types, in various circumstances. And typically, this document addresses end of life circumstances. So you're in a persistent vegetative state, you reach a point where you can't make your own decision and you're expressing whether or not you would want that life sustaining treatment. So it's again, outlining what those treatments are that you want to have performed on, you're not giving somebody the power to make those decisions.

Joshua Klooz  3:42  
Got it. So it's I'm calling a living well as I'm calling my shot for something that maybe known in advance or maybe thought maybe a possibility advance, whereas medical power of attorney is kind of a catch all, for anything outside of that room. Correct.

Sarah Duey  3:59  
You know, typically, those healthcare powers of attorney don't get into detail about treatment choices, they're just giving somebody the power to make choices for you. So that's why it's important to have both if you have preferences as to what treatments you want to have performed on you and what treatments you don't some people don't have the Living Well, they just have the healthcare power of attorney and they talk to that person about what they want to have done. Like, look, I don't want to be on a you know, feeding tube, unless it's certain that I'm going to recover. You know, they outline that but that's what's nice to have in writing sometimes because even if you have that conversation, some people might not remember exactly what you wanted in the heat of the moment when they're under pressure. So having both documents is a really good idea. They work hand in hand. Okay.

Joshua Klooz  4:47  
Sometimes people can tend to be a little bit more relaxed, say, you know, a, you know, I'll just we'll take it as it comes. Why do I even need this document? You know, I'm like that terribly concerned about it what what would be your response to that?

Tom Fridrich  5:03  
Well, I think it really comes down to planning. And sometimes people, you know, we get a little complacent. And so we we don't desire to do the type of planning that we should. And so that type of response that you hear from someone is really reminds me of people that may not want to do the proper planning, because a healthcare power of attorney is really essential, if you're looking at planning ahead, because you never know, when you're going to have that health care event, that's going to lead to a situation where you're incapable of making your own medical decisions, let's face it, it's a wildcard for all of us. Nobody knows what our future health is going to look like, we never know when we're going to have an accident or something that leads to a situation that's an emergency. And so the response to that person is a you never know when this is going to happen. If you plan ahead, by creating a healthcare power of attorney, you can ideally lead to a better result for you where somebody is named, to make the decisions on your behalf in advance. So you have some time to plan and really think about, who should that person be? That's going to make these decisions for me, because in my mind, I prefer to have somebody that I can choose in advance to make those decisions for me, rather than having that that burden or that that responsibility placed on somebody in an emergency situation.

Joshua Klooz  6:42  
So you know, what my next question is going to be? Who, who do you think naturally fit the bill to be that type of person? And how nice do I have to be to that person if I'm going to give them this power?

Tom Fridrich  6:55  
Right? Right, because that is exactly what you do in the healthcare power of attorney, you designate a specific person to make these health care decisions for you when you're not capable of doing it. So it should be somebody that you have a really close relationship to, ideally, somebody like your spouse, if you're not married, in my mind, I think of a very close brother or sister or friend of mine, if I have

Unknown Speaker  7:24  
somebody like that short memory of their sibling, very Short!

Tom Fridrich  7:28  
and maybe even a spouse, right? Because, you know, yeah, there are certain times when we are definitely butting heads with all of those people in our lives. So right, this is somebody that you're close to, that you've spoken to about it in terms of, hey, if the situation arises, here's generally what I think about the type of care I'm looking for. And, you know, that way, if a situation arises, they feel prepared for it. So if somebody close to you could like I said, spouse, parents, friends, family member, that you feel comfortable making those decisions for you in a time of need.

Unknown Speaker  8:08  
So sticking with kind of the agent, topic here, who shouldn't be your agent, you know, like, Who has time just inexperienced told us? Yeah, that's not a good choice.

Tom Fridrich  8:23  
Well, some states actually have laws that limit, who can be your power of attorney, and generally they're focused around your healthcare provider, your doctor. And I think that's generally just because to prevent or protect against a conflict of interest, that they don't want your family doctor playing that role as your your agent. And in some ways, I think that makes sense. And it's most likely, those laws are in existence, because in the past, individuals have done that they've named their doctor as their agent, and it's created some sort of problem in the end. And so I think, if you're going to look at other people that you should not name as your agent, you have to think about it from a common sense point of view. If I'm in a situation, where I can't make decisions, who can actually be there for me and make those decisions? So you don't necessarily want somebody that you're close to, that lives across the country, and isn't going to necessarily be easily to easily reached in a time of an emergency? So I think you have to think, like I said, with a common sense perspective, who are you close to? Who can be there for you in an emergency?

Sarah Duey  9:46  
And I was gonna say to Tom, and Josh, what about you know, naming if you can't pick a child, naming all three kids. What do you think about that? I mean, that to me, It raises some issues that, from a logistical and practical standpoint, you know, if the kids don't all agree, you know, because, again, we all, we all love our siblings, but we don't necessarily all agree on what should happen to our parents. So what do you tell someone who's in that predicament? Who has multiple children? Again? Does it go back to common sense? Does it go back to the child who maybe is the most? Calm, non emotional? You know, I don't, it's a tough situation.

Tom Fridrich  10:35  
Absolutely. And I think it's gonna vary from family to family, in terms of how you make that decision, I'll just give you an example for my family. For my mom's health care power of attorney, I am the primary agent out of her three kids. And I couldn't tell you exactly why she chose me other than perhaps that I work in the estate planning field. And I'm familiar with the roles and responsibility of an agent in this situation. Whereas my brother and sister would at least have maybe that initial question of, okay, what am I doing here, whereas I am at least fully understanding what she's asked me to do on her behalf.

Joshua Klooz  11:16  
I think, to just thinking through, you know, I'm a father of four, I want to sit them and they're young. So I mean, this is hypothetical, obviously, but I want to sit them down and just explain the rationale behind it. So I didn't leave any anything to chance as far as their imagination, because your imagination fills in, you know, blanks, right? And for better, for worse. And so I think it just be important to just say, either, whether it's proximity or an expertise, or just, you know, hey, they're a little bit more mature, I don't know. But, you know, hey, go ahead and take the bull by the horns and just let them know why, beforehand, pre decision or frustration.

Tom Fridrich  12:00  
I really think communicating makes sense just to to help the kids understand why that decision was made.

Sarah Duey  12:07  
As a true Texan would say you took the bull by the horns, right? And you just put everybody down, and you tell them Yeah, on on any of your estate planning documents, I would argue, you know, if you feel comfortable sharing, doesn't mean you have to share the numbers behind all of it, but just the why it really will help provide some comfort, I think, overall to your loved ones, if you kind of explain what's going to happen and why. And especially like

Joshua Klooz  12:33  
it occurs to me, too, if there's been a divorce in the in the situation, or if there's, you know, it's a widowed spouse who has been remarried, and there may not be that cohesion amongst the kids and the new spouse like, gosh, like, for the sake of harmony, have that conversation before the time?

Tom Fridrich  12:56  
Yeah, I like what Sarah said earlier, you really do have to think about again? What is that? What what is the agent good at? So if you have more than one kid who really can step in and play that role best for you? Is it a strength of theirs to make decisions under pressure? If they're not good at that this may not be a good role. And I think of that just in any role, we asked somebody to play on our behalf. Are they good at what we're asking them to do? If not, then don't choose them.

Unknown Speaker  13:28  
Well, that is all for today. We appreciate your time and trust that you are better equipped to steward both your wealth and your financial resources. If you have questions or suggestions for a future topic, please direct those to infohouston@Carsonwealth.com Thank you again for joining us today. May you and your family encounter truth, beauty and goodness on the road ahead.