OREANDA-NEWS. September 29, 2015. Many people have ideas about what kind of health care they would want to receive in the event of a life-threatening illness or event, yet not many have actually shared their preferences or documented a plan. To encourage a shift, the Centers for Medicaid and Medicare Services recently proposed that doctors and other qualified professionals be reimbursed for conversations with patients about end-of-life planning. And now researchers at Aetna’s Innovation Labs have discovered an encouraging connection:  People who discussed end-of-life planning during financial planning sessions were more likely to complete an advance directive.

End-of-life planning is normally done through an advance directive, a legal document that lays out a person’s wishes around end-of-life care. It details, for example, what should be done if a person must be put permanently on dialysis, be fed perpetually through a tube, or cannot breathe on his or her own. The existence of a directive helps ensure these wishes are followed, even if an illness or injury leaves the person unable to make his or her wishes known.

“There’s a tremendous need for more effective ways to get people to plan ahead,” said Dr. Jay Rajda, a medical director at Aetna’s Innovation Labs and one of the study’s authors. “Intuitively, financial planning seminars seemed like a good time, place and way to broach the topic, since people are already in a frame of mind to think about planning for their golden years.”

To test this assumption, Aetna’s Innovation Labs studied the effectiveness of end-of-life planning education that took place in financial planning seminars. The financial planning seminars were provided by the individual’s employer, and were done through either a webinar or an in-person workshop. The results showed that those who attended end-of-life education sessions were more likely to complete an advance medical directive than those who did not. And when those workshops were conducted in person – as opposed to a webinar – the completion rate was even higher.

Only about a third of all adults, and about half of those age 60 and older, have an advance directive expressing their wishes for end-of-life care, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

“Talking about advanced illness and preferences at the end of life can be difficult,” Rajda said. “Many people don’t want to think about a loved one facing declining health or death. Many others don’t know when or where to start the conversation. Sadly, if they haven’t planned ahead of time, individuals and their family members may not know what to do in the face of a serious accident or sudden death, or if someone is diagnosed with a terminal disease.

“We look forward to further exploring ways to encourage these conversations to take place and help ensure that more patients are equipped with information to make end-of-life planning part of their lives.”

Editor’s note: Many people say a lack of knowledge about end-of-life planning is a main reason they don’t have a plan. Additional information about advance medical directives can be found in the following locations: Aetna’s Compassionate Care Program, The Conversation Project and the National Institute on Aging.