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What is advance care planning?
Making plans now for the care you want when you have a serious illness is called “advance care planning.” Advance care planning helps you make your care decisions now and in the future. Planning involves learning about your illness and understanding your choices for treatments and care.
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What is involved in the planning process?
Talking with family and health care providers about your care decisions and formally documenting them is very important. This website uses the word “family” to mean people related to us and those we choose to call family.
Legal documents discuss the type of care you want, where care happens, and who provides it so your family knows your choices and understands who you want to speak for you if you are not able to do so. Medicare covers certain advance care planning discussions with your health care professional.
Care decisions can be about:
- Choosing or refusing tests, procedures and medicines, and life-sustaining treatment
- Saying who can make care decisions for you when you cannot
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Where and by whom is care provided?
Care can occur in your:
- Home
- Assisted living facility
- Nursing home
- Hospital
You can choose who provides care for you:
- Family who are willing and able to help
- Palliative or comfort care team
- Home care agency
- Hospice
- Nursing home
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Advance Care Fact Sheets
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Additional Care Planning Resources
Advance Care Planning Tips
Source: National Institute on Aging
Give Peace of Mind: Advance Care Planning
Source: The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
Let’s Talk
Source: Eldercare Locator and The Conversation Project
VA Advance Care Planning Resources
Source: Department of Veterans Affairs
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