Health & Benefits

Advanced planning means preparing for future decisions in case you are unable to communicate your wishes.

Advanced planning includes planning for medical care and financial matters. This section focuses on health care planning. Learn more about financial planning, including wills, powers of attorney for property, small estate affidavits, and Transfer on Death Instruments (TODIs) on ILAO’s wills and estates page.

Advance directives are legal documents that say how you want medical decisions to be made in the future if you are not able to make the decisions yourself. They include:

• Powers of Attorney for Health Care,
• Living Wills,
• Practitioner Orders for Life-Sustaining Treatment (POLST), and
• Declarations for Mental Health Treatment.

If you do not have a Power of Attorney for Health Care or other advance directives and you are unable to make your own decisions, a decision maker will be chosen according to law or by a court. The Illinois Health Care Surrogate Act says the order in which people will be selected to serve as a surrogate or substitute decision maker. Learn more about the Health Care Surrogate Act.

You might disagree with the decisions that are made by a surrogate. Or, your surrogate decision makers may not be able to agree on how to handle your medical care. A Power of Attorney for Health Care and other advance directives give you control over how decisions are made for you. 

To learn more about Powers of Attorney for Health Care, you can read Power of Attorney for Health Care basics and common questions.

To learn more about Living Wills, you can read Living Will basics and common questions.

You can also learn more about other health directives, including:

• Practitioner Orders for Life-Sustaining Treatment (POLST), and
• Declarations for Mental Health Treatment.

To learn about funeral planning and available assistance programs, you can read funeral planning basics and common questions.