Seemingly an odd question coming from this health insurance agent.

Backdrop.

Preliminary to a routine outpatient procedure recently, I was asked if I had an Advance Directive. (Oh, great. So much for “routine!”)

An Advance Directive - otherwise known as a Medical Power of Attorney (POA) - allows me/you to specify the person(s) to make health care decisions if you are incapacitated and unable to do so; i.e., your Health Care Agent.

A properly drafted document outlines for providers and/or loved ones, which treatments you want or do not want, such as life support or artificial nutrition, in specific scenarios like terminal illness or permanent unconsciousness. 

Secondarily, there’s the issue of lowering costs.

Consider 25% (!) of Medicare’s expenditures are incurred for patients in the last year of their life.

Related; a National Institutes of Health (NIH) study (HERE) concluded having an AD was associated with significantly lower hospital out of pocket costs; "a higher magnitude of savings for younger decedents, and those who completed an AD more than 3 months before death."  

OK. I get it.

I’m meeting with my attorney Wednesday.

P.S. Lucky is planning for me to be around w-a-a-a-a-a-y more than 3 months!