An advance directive is an important legal document, so keeping it somewhere safe makes sense. You want it protected from loss, damage, or access by people who shouldn’t have it.
At the same time, an advance directive is a document that someone else may need when you can’t retrieve it yourself.
That makes accessibility part of keeping it safely stored.
A safe deposit box, locked home safe, or password-protected digital account can all provide security. The question is whether the right person could still reach your advance directive if you were unable to open the box, provide the combination, or log in to the account.
The goal is not to choose between security and access. It is to have both.
That is why where you keep an advance directive is only part of the plan. It also helps to think about who may need it, how they would get it, and what would happen if you could not help them.
Why a Safe Deposit Box Can Create a Problem
A safe deposit box makes sense for documents and valuables that you want to protect. That same level of protection can make it a poor choice for the only available copy of an advance directive.
Harvard Health Publishing cautions against locking a living will or healthcare power of attorney in a safe deposit box. If you are unexpectedly hospitalized, the documents may not be readily available when they are needed.
There is also the question of timing. Medical emergencies do not happen only during banking hours. Even someone with access to the box may not be able to retrieve your documents at night, over a weekend, or when the bank is closed.
That gets to the central issue with advance directive storage.
If access to a document depends on you being available to retrieve it, or on a particular place being open, the document may be difficult to reach at exactly the wrong time. Yet an advance directive is specifically intended to provide direction if there comes a time when you cannot communicate your healthcare wishes yourself.
A home safe can raise a similar question if no one else knows the combination. Even when someone else knows where you keep the document, that person may not be at home or available to retrieve it when a copy is needed. A password-protected digital account can create another barrier if you are the only person with the login information.
None of these storage methods is necessarily a bad choice. The question is whether you are relying on that location as the only way to reach your advance directive.
Keeping the original safely stored at home can be part of a good plan. Having another reliable way to access the document means everything does not depend on someone being able to get back home and find it.
Think Beyond Where the Original Is Kept
The original document is only one part of an advance directive access plan.
Harvard Health recommends giving copies to your healthcare agent and physician. It also suggests providing a copy to the hospital where you are likely to receive care and carrying a wallet card that identifies your healthcare agent and where your advance directive can be found.
There is a practical reason for thinking about access in several ways.
Your healthcare agent may need the document if that person is asked to make decisions on your behalf.
A physician can have a copy available as part of your medical record. Information in your wallet can
alert someone that you have an advance directive and provide information about how to access it if you cannot tell them yourself.
Each of these steps helps make sure your advance directive is available when it is needed. Together, they reduce the need to depend on one person, one location, or one method of access.
Accessibility Matters Outside an Emergency Too
It is easy to associate advance directives with unexpected medical emergencies. Access can matter in much more ordinary situations.
You may have an upcoming surgery or procedure and want to provide the facility with your directive ahead of time. A new physician may need a copy for your medical record. You may simply want to make sure a provider has your current healthcare documents on file.
In those situations, knowing that your original is safely stored somewhere does not necessarily make it convenient to provide.
This is where it helps to distinguish storage from access.
Storage answers the question, “Where is my document?”
Access answers a different question: “How can I get the document to the person who needs it?”
A good plan considers both.
Digital Storage Can Help, but Access Still Matters
Keeping a digital copy can provide another way to reach an advance directive without relying on the original paper document.
However, simply scanning a directive and putting it online does not automatically solve the access problem.
A file stored in a private cloud account, for example, may be easy for you to retrieve. If you are the only person who knows the password or even knows the file exists, someone else may have difficulty reaching it without your help.
The same can be true of a copy saved only on a locked phone or personal computer.
Digital storage can make a document available without tying it to one physical location. The important consideration is whether the people who may need the directive have a way to obtain it.
How Legal Directives Provides Another Access Option
Legal Directives provides storage for members’ healthcare directives while also providing several ways for those documents to be accessed.
Members’ directives are available 24 hours a day, seven days a week. They can log in to their account and request their documents when they need them. Members can also request their documents by fax or email.
That access can be useful well before an emergency.
For example, a member who has an upcoming medical procedure can request a stored directive ahead of time. Members can also have their documents faxed to a physician when they enroll or whenever a copy is needed.
This provides another way to accomplish one of the practical steps Harvard Health discusses: making advance directive documents available to healthcare providers.
Legal Directives also provides a way to access stored documents during an unexpected medical situation. Members receive an Emergency Wallet Card with information healthcare professionals can use to access their directives.
The card means members do not need to carry an entire set of healthcare documents with them. Instead, information about how to access those documents can stay in their wallet.
In an emergency, that can provide a way to locate the member’s healthcare directives even when the member cannot personally retrieve or send them.
What About Your Healthcare Agent?
Harvard Health also recommends giving a copy of your advance directive to your healthcare agent.
Making the document available is part of preparing someone for that role, but there is another piece that storage cannot address.
Your healthcare agent should know that you selected them and understand your wishes. Talking about the care you would or would not want can provide context that a written document may not always capture.
It also helps to make sure your agent knows where your documents are stored and how to obtain them.
The goal is not simply for someone to know that an advance directive exists. The person who may eventually need to act on it should understand your wishes and know how to access the document that records them.
Test Your Own Access Plan
There is a simple way to find weak spots in your advance directive storage plan: take yourself out of it.
Imagine that you cannot go home and retrieve the original. You can’t open your safe, log in to an account, unlock your phone, or tell someone which folder contains the document.
What happens next?
Does your healthcare agent have access? Does a physician have a copy? Is there information in your wallet that can help healthcare professionals locate your directives? Is there another reliable way for someone to retrieve the document?
You do not necessarily need every possible method of access. The goal is to avoid a situation in which everything depends on you being able to find and provide the document yourself.
Plan for the Moment You Cannot Provide It Yourself
Keeping your advance directive safe is important, but it also needs to be available to the people who may need it. Planning for both helps make sure your directive can be found and used when you cannot provide it yourself.
Harvard Health, “Keep your living will safe but accessible.” Read the full article here.