Financial vs Health Care Powers of Attorney and the importance of each
Dan: Yes, I have a professional will drawn up, but one of my son is the power of attorney and my daughter is a healthcare surrogate. Does the power of attorney have the power over the healthcare surrogate?
Atty. Tom Olsen: Dan, often there are two different powers of attorney, they are two separate documents. One is a financial power of attorney, the other is a healthcare power of attorney, also known as a healthcare surrogate, also known as an advanced directive. You might very well, as far as financial is concerned named your son as your first choice, on your healthcare power of attorney, you might have named your daughter as a first choice.
Dan: Right. That's what I did. I had my son be the power of attorney. Then a second paper has my daughter be the healthcare surrogate.
Atty. Olsen: Do you have a question about that, Dan?
Dan: Yes. Does the power of attorney have power over the healthcare surrogate?
Atty. Olsen: No, no, no. Your financial power of attorney is for financial purposes only. Your son, because he's your number one on your financial, he would not be able to tell your daughter what to do on your healthcare surrogate because you've named your daughter on the healthcare surrogate. Does that answer your question for you?
Dan: Very good. Yes, it does. That's the answer I wanted. Thank you so much.
Atty. Olsen: All right. You're very welcome. Hey, Holley, while we're on the question of powers of attorney, whether we're talking about financial or healthcare, there are options. Sometimes people say they got three kids and sometimes they name child one, choice, choice two, child two, choice three, number three. We're going right down the line. Sometimes they'll name all three kids or two of their kids.
Atty. Holley Knapik: Yes. You definitely have a choice as to who you can appoint to be either your healthcare power of attorney or your financial power of attorney. Our caller just raised one option that is exercised quite often for various reasons. Sometimes one child will be named primary for the healthcare because they are in the healthcare field, whether they're a doctor, nurse, anesthesiologist, the principal feels comfortable. Financial power of attorney, it's a completely different child because they're CPA or they're an attorney. Again, the goal I think is to know that you do have a choice and there's no wrong way to do it.
Atty. Olsen: Exactly. There's a third document that Dan might've been referring to, and that's a living will declaration. It's a pull-the-plug, don't keep me alive by machines. Even when we do what Dan was talking about and what we're talking about, you got three kids, you're naming your son to be in charge of finances, you're naming your daughter to be in charge of making healthcare decisions, but often they'll still say, "Okay, I want all three of my kids to make the final decision to pull the plug." When they say something like that, we say, "Okay, is that by unanimous decision or by majority decision?"
Atty. Holley: Exactly. Yes.
Atty. Olsen: That's been my experience is that most people want a living will where they want to have all their kids by a majority decision. The another thing is that for a healthcare surrogate, also known as a healthcare power of attorney, also known as an advanced directive, if you have three kids, you can name all three of them to make healthcare decisions for you. Tell the listeners about what the choices there would be.
Atty. Holley: Absolutely. If you have three kids, you can name all three kids to be your healthcare power of attorney and you have the decision to say, child one, two, and three with the ability to allow the others to continue to serve should one not wish to serve or is unable to serve. Then you have a choice of naming one, two, or three, which would then say any of the children could act independently if necessary or together.
Atty. Olsen: Exactly. All good choices and every client is different. What they want to accomplish is different. Holley, while we're talking about powers of attorney, here's a text to us that says they live in Florida. They're the power of attorney for a friend, but they don't want to be the power of attorney for the friend. Actually, the term is an agent. When you have a power of attorney and you're appointing somebody to make healthcare decisions for you or financial decisions for you, that person is called your agent.
He's the agent for somebody. He doesn't want to be the agent for somebody. What does he need to do? He's actually talking about, well, does he need to go to a law firm and sign a notarized document saying, "I don't want to do this," or, B, "Release me?" The answer is no. When you do a power of attorney and you appoint an agent, you're asking them to do this for you. They are not obligated to do this for you. Usually, our clients when they appoint agents, they're letting the person know, "Hey, by the way, I've asked you to, if it comes down to it, pay my bills for me and make healthcare decisions for me."
Atty. Holley: Right. They're usually notifying or even asking permission.
Atty. Olsen: Yes. The point is, for our texter here, there's nothing he needs to do. If his friend, that power of attorney comes into play, needs to be used, somebody calls our texter and says, "Okay, he appointed you," all our texter needs to do is say, "I don't want to do it. I'm going to sign a form. I don't want to do it." Then all that happens is they go into choice number two under that power of attorney. Just that simple. Nothing that really needs to be done, texter. Thank you for that great text.
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