Getting Started Tool Kit

You can also start here to make your own plan. The tool kit has everything you need.  It's as easy as 1-2-3!

Hispanic mother and daughter

1. Who's Your Agent?

Choose a Health Care Agent in a Health Care Proxy.

signing Personal Directive

2. What Matters to Me?

Write down your care choices in a Personal Directive (Living Will).

Talking to a doctor.

3. Talk About Your Care.

Use our handy conversation guide to put your plan into action.

This do-it-yourself tool kit provides step by step instructions to start to make your personal health care plan. Start with Step 1 and go at your own pace. 

Step 1. You choose a person you trust to be your Health Care Agent and appoint or write in the name of your Health Care Argent in a in a Health Care Proxy document. Start a simple conversation to tell your Agent what's important to you and the kind of care you want if you get sick or injured.

  • Not able to choose an Health Care Agent? That's OK.  Just start with Step 2  and the Personal Directive (Living Will) .

Step 2. You can write down what's important to you and your care choices and preferences in a document called a Personal Directive (Living Will). The Personal Directive tells your Health Care Agent and other important people how to care for you.

Step 3. Start a simple conversation with your care providers to put your documents in your medical record, and talk about your goals to get the best possible care today and over your lifetime.

The  Getting Started Tool Kit includes:

The Health Care Proxy is available in English, Spanish, Portuguese, Vietnamese, Russian, Traditional Chinese, Simplified Chinese, Haitian-Creole, Khmer, Albanian, Arabic, Nepali, Swahili, Tagalog and Polish.  Download here.

See all our multilingual documents, wallet cards, and subtitled videos and tools on the Resources Page.