- Registration / Signin
- Professionals Signin
- Memberships:
5 ways to join - To order Books/Cards/Forms
- Learn Before You Decide
- Natural Dying Living Will Cards
- Natural Dying® Living Will Cards (for religious observers)
- Plan Now; Die Later—Ironclad Strategy explained
- NATURAL DYING® FORMS for a Plan Now; Die Later—Ironclad Strategy
- MyLastWishes.org
- DNR-Registry Medallion
- On-line Store
- Video series: Plan Now, Die Later--Peacefully
- Natural Dying®
Advance Directive
- Natural Dying®
Physician's Orders - Articles on End of Life Planning The Sooner Mother Dies the Better Palliative Sedation: Pros and Cons
- Slide Presentations:
For professionals
For general audiences - Survey
- Testimonials
- ThirstControl.com
- Free phone consultation
Benefits of Caring Advocates’ Memberships
Why become a member of Caring Advocates?
- To control the last chapter of your life;
- To attain the goal of a timely and peaceful transition; and
- To reduce the stress and suffering of your loved ones.
To reduce how long and how much you, may suffer, you must create an effective Advance Care Plan that will:
- Avoid days to weeks of unending, unbearable pain and suffering in any terminal illness; and,
- Avoid months to years of prolonged lingering in Advanced Dementia.
This task is not simple. Even if you already know how to express your Known Wishes in a way that your future physician will consider specific and clear and convincing, you must still overcome many challenges to get others to honor your Last Wishes after you no longer can speak for yourself.
The mission of Caring Advocates: to offer Advance Care Planning that will be effective so that others WILL honor your Known Wishes... rapidly and without conflict.
Caring Advocates, a non-profit organization, recommends implementing specific strategies that can overcome a wide variety of challenges. While there are easier, faster, and cheaper Living Wills you can sign, if you want to avoid unending, unbearable pain and suffering, and lingering in the stage of Advanced Dementia, then you diligently put in some extra effort. For further information, see this 11-minute video: A Living Will for Alzheimer’s Dementia: it’s easy and effective. For more detail, view this two-part video (each is 30 minutes): To Prevent Prolonged Dying & Pain in Alzheimer’s Dementia & Terminal Illnesses. Part One: Challenges; Part Two Strategies. Note: Other relevant videos are on the channel, www.YouTube.com/DrTerman or “Plan Now, Die Later-Peacefully”.
In some countries, such as the United Kingdom, the law makes it a crime if physicians provide unwanted treatment that a patient’s valid Living Will (Advance Decisions form) clearly and specifically REFUSES. NOT SO in the United States. US physicians can, and often do exercise their authority by writing those orders they judge to be clinically appropriate. Even in the UK, patients’ REQUESTS for wanted treatment may be thwarted; for example, to receive enough pain and sedative medication to completely eliminate their end-of-life suffering.
Caring Advocates offers a three-component ironclad strategy. Completing your living will is just the important beginning. To make sure your future physicians WILL honor your Known Wishes, add clinical and strategic forms and record yourself on video. Start by sorting a deck of My Way Cards or Natural Dying Living Will Cards. Sorting makes it easy to decide about each illustrated and plainly worded symptom, loss of function, unwanted behavior, or conflict with lifelong value—one at a time. Sorting generates your personalized Natural Dying—Living Will that expresses your end-of-life preferences in a specific, comprehensive, and clear and convincing way. While the cards include complete instructions, further guidance is provided by the video: For a Living Will that is Effective for Advanced Dementia & Terminal Illnesses, sort “My Way Cards” or “Natural Dying Living Will Cards”. (Note: either version leads to the same living will; but those who follow the beliefs of certain religions may find the second version more acceptable.)
Add two clinical forms that are physically combined—a strategy that combines durability and authority of your Known Wishes: the Natural Dying Advance Directive (NDAD) and the Natural Dying Physician's Orders (NDPO). Attach your Natural Dying—Living Will to your NDAD. Complete a Consent Form for Relief of Unbearable Suffering by Palliative Sedation and attach it to your NDPO. (You will receive instructions for what forms you should discuss and sign with your physician.)
Important: these clinical forms can work alongside other forms—including the free ones that your state may provide, such popular forms as “Five Wishes,” and forms provided by other organizations. Just sign the NDAD form where it asks if you want your Natural Dying form to prevail, if any other form (including a POLST) conflicts.
The Plan Now, Die Later—Ironclad Strategy
Caring Advocates also offers two strategic forms, the Natural Dying Agreement and the Natural Dying Affidavit. These forms give extra power and legal standing to your proxy/agent to overcome certain challenges and possible conflicts. The completed bundle of clinical and strategic forms constitutes the first component of your ironclad strategy, whose goal is to convince clinicians to honor your Last Wishes. For example, the forms let your future physicians know they might lose their immunity for being sued if they fail to honor your available Known Wishes.
To avoid conflicts among family members, or between your family and clinicians or health institutions, Caring Advocates strongly recommends recording yourself on two videos. This is the second component of the ironclad strategy. Such court cases as Terri Schiavo’s and Nancy Beth Cruzan’s lead Caring Advocates’ professionals to conclude that the best way to convince others to honor your Last Wishes is to include a recording of yourself as you describe WHAT you want and explain WHY, followed by the recorded opinion of a clinician who states that your mind was “sound” (you had capacity) to give your informed consent for the specific treatments you refused or requested.
The third component of the ironclad strategy is to make sure your Last Wishes (as embodied in your forms and videos) are available when your future physicians need to write orders and other clinicians need to follow them. The MyLastWishes.org Program stores your forms and your recorded videos so they can be rapidly retrieved when needed. (This optional program is available only to members of Caring Advocates.)
BASIC MEMBERSHIP
Membership at the “Basic Level” may be an economical, ala cart way to become a member of Caring Advocates. The one-time fee of $45 includes a print copy of the separate book, Peaceful Transitions: Plan Now, Die Later—Ironclad Strategy (a $16 value).
Membership entitles you to a 10% discount on one copy of the print version of any item Caring Advocates offers. This offer includes all books, DVDs, My Way Cards or Natural Dying Living Will Cards, and the clinical and strategic bundle of forms that comprise the “Plan Now, Die Later—Ironclad Strategy.” To receive your discount, purchase these items when you join. Membership also lets you order a Thirst Reducing Aid Kit at Caring Advocates’ cost. Most people order later. The current cost is about $75.
Membership entitles you to enroll in the MyLastWishes.org Program. If you enroll, you will receive a laminated MyWCard that has your unique 2-dimensional barcode that links to your personal web page that only you (and your proxy, if authorized) can change by uploading new revisions of your documents and videos. You get several small stickers and printouts of your 2-dimensional barcode that you can paste on other forms or post on your refrigerator door. You also get a plastic, wearable MyWCard Pouch that can hold your physician-signed DNR (Out-of-Hospital Do Not Attempt Resuscitation Order) as an alternative to wearing a metal DNR medallion (which Caring Advocates is also authorized to provide). Your “MyWCard Pouch” can alternatively hold your POLST (Physician Orders for Life-Sustaining Treatment) and your Natural Dying Physician’s Orders (NDPO).
Once uploaded, physicians and medical personal and hospitals can access your most recently revised forms in emergencies—to rapidly learn your Known Wishes. Your unique 2-dimensional barcode allows physicians and emergency medical personnel to request immediate viewing, printing, faxing, and downloading of your forms, and viewing of your videos—the combination of which is designed to convince them to honor your Last Wishes.
Caring Advocates recommends recording and uploading two videos. The first is, Explaining my decisions for my Natural Dying Living Will, which you can make on your own—either as you sort the illustrated deck of cards, or as you discuss your living will with your proxy/agent. A Caring Advocates Planning Professionals usually conducts the second video, Honor My Last Wishes Summary Interview—either in person or via Internet. This video has three parts: i) your concise statement to paramedics about emergency treatment (for example, “I do NOT want Cardio-Pulmonary Resuscitation”); ii) your own words regarding WHAT treatments you DO or do NOT want and WHY; and iii) a clinician’s opinion that you had capacity to make these decisions and to give your informed consent.
You can store your videos at a nationally recognized website that offers rapid access for viewing, which has “private” access that offers some security (which we explain before you decide to upload).
Your total cost will depend on how many items you choose and how much help you desire from the staff and the professional team at Caring Advocates. Consider these examples of various combinations: (Shipping and handling are additional.)
A) Life-time membership in Caring Advocates: $45, which includes the separate book, Peaceful Transitions: Plan Now, Die Later—Ironclad Strategy (a $16 value);
B) One set of My Way Cards or Natural Dying Living Will Cards: $36 (Note: the deck of cards includes one Natural Dying—Living Will (a discount of 10%). The cards can be used to generate additional living wills that cost $25;
C) One bundled set of “Plan Now, Die Later—Ironclad Strategy” forms: $22.50 (10% off);
D) Initial registration in the MyLastWishes.org Program: $40;
E) Storage for MyLastWishes.org: $30 annually, but multiple year discounts are available as noted below).
F) A staff person at Caring Advocates can upload your forms and videos: (optional, $35);
G) Your recorded video interview with a Caring Advocates Planning Professional (varies based on professional and time).
Examples:
To begin, A + B = 45 + 36 = $81. (The illustrated cards teach you about Advanced Dementia and other terminal illnesses and then let you decide and express what treatment you DO or do NOT want. The book explains the challenges and strategies, and shows how to complete the forms.)
Add the clinical and strategic bundle of forms to complete the first component of your ironclad strategy: Above + 22.50 = $103.50
To store your forms and videos on MyLastWishes.org: Above + 40 + 30 = $173.50 for one year; then $30 per year thereafter.
Other options: For five years of storage: Above + $65 = 238.50. For lifetime storage: Above + $50 = 288.50.
(Note: the sooner you decide you want lifetime storage, the more economical it will be. Your choices are: $30 for each year; $95 for five years; or $145 for lifetime storage.)
Additional for optional help by Caring Advocates staff to upload your forms and videos: $35 (or less, if you require less help).
Many record the Explaining my decisions for my Natural Dying Living Will video themselves. However, if the patient has a mild problem with memory, thinking, or judgment, there may be less conflict later if the interview is conducted by a Caring Advocates Planning Professional. The Honor My Last Wishes Summary Interview video should be conducted by a Caring Advocates Planning Professional. These interviews can be either in-person or on-line, for which there will be a professional fee. Call for further information.
| Level of member | Cost | BENEFITS | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Limited | $25 Lifetime Membership |
The “Limited Membership” is designed for patients who are only sure that they want a DNR medallion or who wish to take their time to learn more about the benefits of becoming a full member of Caring Advocates. The benefits of “Limited Membership” are limited but important: You are entitled to order a DNR medallion and Caring Advocates will store the copy of your Pre-Hospital DNR or Out-of-Hospital DNR or POLST form that you provided, which was signed by you and your physician. If someone calls our toll-free phone number, Caring Advocates can verify that one of these forms is on file. (Note: Limited Members also receive email updates about relevant information, unless they opt out.) |
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Basic |
$45 Lifetime Membership |
Membership at the “Basic Level” may be an economical, ala cart way to become a member of Caring Advocates. The one-time fee of $45 includes a print copy of the separate book, Peaceful Transitions: Plan Now, Die Later—Ironclad Strategy (a $16 value). |
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Regular |
$100 Lifetime Membership |
Our most popular level includes all the benefits of the “Basic Membership” PLUS: |
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Deluxe |
$350 (a $380 value) Lifetime Membership |
A prudent choice for those who want to make sure others will honor their Known Wishes and/or who wish some help in completing the “ironclad strategy.” |
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Premium |
$750 (or as determined) Lifetime Membership |
Our most comprehensive service is appropriate for patients with early dementia or any other condition that might open the door to a later challenge that the patient did not possess the ability to make decisions about medical treatment when engaged in Advance Care Planning; and for those who want expert professional advice as they complete the tasks of Advance Care Planning. |
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MEMBERSHIP UPGRADES: Yes, you can upgrade your membership. You can even upgrade a "readership" to a "membership"—if, for example, you previously purchased a book or a deck of My Way Cards. Call us at 800 647 3223 to discuss your particular situation and wishes. IMPORTANT NOTE: Only members of Caring Advocates can request that we send a Natural Dying Physician's Orders form to their personal physician. Each member's form has an Unique Identifying Number (UIN). Caring Advocates does not distribute useable forms to the public for an important reason: we insist on professional oversight for their use. You can, however, download evaluation copies of these forms from this website. (See below.) How to pay: You can click a button above and then use almost any CREDIT CARD with PayPal, even if you do not have a PayPal account. The process is fast and free to you, and considered safe and secure. PayPal's stated policy is not to share your information with any third party or company. Note: As a non-proft organization, Caring Advocates will try to work with everyone, regardless of the ability to pay. All contributions will help those with more limited resources and will further our educational and research missions to help individuals and families experience peaceful transitions. Note to tax advisors: The value of books and cards received for personal use, and the value of the hour(s) of consultation, are not likely to be considered tax-deductible. Caring Advocates was established in March, 2000, as Life Transitions Foundation. It is recognized as a 501(c)(3) public charitable organization. Its name changed to Caring Advocates in 2005. Checks can be sent via US Postal Service to Caring Advocates, 2730 Argonauta Street, Carlsbad, CA 92009. Stocks and bonds can be transferred to Caring Advocates, a California corporation. (Call us for account information, or to send us an e-check.) |
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Click on the image above to download evaluation copies of two forms for Natural Dying: Natural Dying Advance Directive and Physician's Orders to Permit Natural Dying.
For an evaluation copy and more information about the Natural Dying—Living Will, click here: My Way Cards.