Far too many Americans overlook the potential benefits of estate planning because they believe it’s too difficult, not necessary for their specific situation or too expensive. But there can be major costs to ignoring components of your estate plan. Most people are familiar with the benefits afforded by a will, but a new study shows that up to 66% of Americans don’t have a healthcare directive. 

A healthcare directive is a legal document in which you lay out your decisions for caregivers in the event that you suffer from dementia or another similar ailment.

It can also provide important guidance around whether or not you want life-sustaining care. Health care directives sometimes go under other names depending on your specific location, including medical directives, living wills, or durable health care powers of attorney.

In general, most of these documents serve the same function to provide direction and guidance around how the death and medical decisions affecting you should be made. Health care directives are truly a relatively new legal document because they only came into existence in 1976 in California when the first law was passed enabling health care directives.

By 1992, however, all 50 states across the country had similar laws. Make sure that you have incorporated your intention for a health care directive into your estate planning by sitting down and consulting with an experienced and knowledgeable estate planning lawyer.