Advance Health Care Directive

Advance Health Care Directive (AHCD) is a primary and more universal document in the process of advance care planning. It gives instructions about your health care and/or appoints someone to make medical treatment decisions for you if you cannot make them for yourself. 

On a more practical level, it gives you the opportunity to share your “Five Wishes": 
Wish 1: The person I want to make health care decisions for me when I can't.
Wish 2: The kind of medical treatment I want or don’t want.
Wish 3: How comfortable I want to be.
Wish 4: How I want people to treat me.
Wish 5: What I want my loved ones to know.

HIPAA, the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, prohibits health care providers from releasing medical information about you unless you sign a medical release form allowing them to do so.
Your signed HIPAA medical release form includes the names of the people you would like to have access to your medical information. It is especially important if you become unexpectedly incapacitated and need the immediate help of your family members or friends.