It is your right to make your own healthcare decisions in Washington State. The decisions you make can be as simple as the type of meals you’d like, or as difficult as choosing whether or not to receive life-sustaining treatments.

If you become unconscious or too ill to communicate your own medical care decisions then the staff will follow your living will, which gives you a voice in the type of treatment you want. As long as you are able to express your own decisions, your living will cannot be used and you can verbally refuse or accept any medical treatment you want.

The purpose of a Living Will declaration is to document your wish that life-sustaining treatment, including artificially or technologically supplied nutrition and hydration, be withheld or withdrawn if you are unable to make informed medical decisions and are in a terminal condition or in a permanently unconscious state.

A will to live, formally called a living will form, is a type of advance directive. These legal forms are usually required to be notarized or signed and dated by witnesses.

Protect your assets from probate

There is an old saying, "nothing is sure in life except death and taxes". Whether you like it or not, someday you will die. How you die and how it effects the people you leave behind can be affected by whether or not you have a living will.