If you’re aging without a spouse, partner or adult children nearby, the healthcare system can feel like it was built for someone else. Forms ask for a family contact. Surgery centers ask who is driving you home. Hospitals ask who should get the call.
None of that means you can’t age well on your own. It means planning a little earlier and a little more deliberately. Here are eight steps, in the order most people find easiest. Start with the first two.
1. Name a health care agent, and a backup
Your health care agent (also called a health care surrogate or proxy) speaks for you if you can’t make or communicate your own medical decisions. Without one, the law may leave those decisions to a relative you rarely see, or to a court.
Choose someone who knows your values, can stay calm in a hospital and will be reachable. It doesn’t have to be family. Ask them first, then name a backup. Read more in What Is a Health Care Surrogate?
2. Put your wishes in writing
A living will, sometimes called an advance directive, states your wishes about life-prolonging treatment. It speaks for you in the situations you can predict, and your agent handles the ones you can’t. Give copies to your agent and your doctors.
3. Make a one-page medical summary
List your doctors, medications and doses, allergies, diagnoses, past surgeries and insurance details on a single page. Keep a copy on your refrigerator or by the door, where emergency responders look, and another in your wallet or on your phone. Update it whenever a medication changes.
4. Choose your emergency contacts
Pick two or three people a hospital can call, and tell them they’re on the list. Make sure they know who your agent is and where your documents are kept.
5. Plan your rides before you book a procedure
Many hospitals and surgery centers won’t release you after sedation unless a responsible adult takes you home, and some won’t accept a taxi or rideshare on its own. Ask about the facility’s rules when you schedule, then line up your ride. Read more in Who Will Take Me Home?
6. Decide where you’d want care
If you needed help at home, or couldn’t live alone for a while, where would you want to be? Tour assisted living communities, learn what home care agencies in your area offer and write down your preferences. Deciding early keeps the choice yours instead of whoever has an open bed that week.
7. See an elder law attorney
An attorney can prepare the documents your state requires, including a health care power of attorney and a financial power of attorney, and make sure they work together. This step protects everything else on the list.
8. Build check-ins into your week
Families notice small changes: a missed medication, a fall, weight loss, confusion. Build in people who would notice for you. That might be a friend you call every Sunday, a neighbor with a key, a faith community or a professional who checks in regularly.
You don’t have to do it alone
A patient advocate can help you work through this list, go to appointments with you, watch over a hospital stay and support the person you name as your agent. Cheryl A. Scharoun, RN, BSN, BCPA, helps solo agers in person in Raleigh-Durham and anywhere in the country by phone. The first consultation is free.
This article is general information, not legal or medical advice.