CareGoals Have the conversation
The steps ↓

This document is meant to travel.

Two steps, and it’s where it needs to be: in your ComfortCard, and with the person who speaks for you.

  1. Put it in your ComfortCard

    One tap copies it into your ComfortCard family file, beside the insurance cards and care letters. ComfortCard asks first, then keeps it in that browser, on that device. No account, and nothing is uploaded.

    Put it in my ComfortCard ↗

  2. Share it with the person who speaks for you

    They should have it before anyone needs it. The whole document travels inside the link, so no account is needed to open it.

    Your wishes travel inside the link itself, in the part of the address after the #, which browsers don’t send to any server, and nothing is stored on ours. The link is encoded, not encrypted: anyone who has it can read the document, so send it only to people you trust.

ComfortCard is a separate site. The wishes reach it only inside that link, in the part after the #, and it clears them from the address bar once it has read them. If your wishes change, put the new version in the same way: the family file keeps each copy with its date, and you can delete an old one there.

The document is done. The next step is a person.

A plan on paper only changes what happens if the right people are holding it. Start with the clinician who knows your health.

Your own clinician

Bring it to an advance care planning visit

Medicare pays for a conversation with your own doctor, nurse practitioner, or physician assistant about exactly this. It’s where your wishes go into your medical record, where someone who knows your health can say what they would mean in practice, and where you can fill in your state’s form, or a POLST if you’re seriously ill.

  • When you book, ask for “an advance care planning visit.” Pair it with your yearly wellness visit and it costs you nothing, as long as your clinician accepts Medicare’s approved amount as full payment.
  • Bring the person who speaks for you, if you can.
  • Bring the visit packet: this document, plus a one-page worksheet your clinician fills in during the visit.

The packet leaves out the message to family and anything unfinished, which are meant for family. It’s made on this device, and nothing is sent to CareGoals. Not on Medicare? Ask the health plan whether it covers an advance care planning visit. What Medicare covers · What the clinician sees

Four more places to take it

Make it official
The state’s own advance directive form
Copy these wishes onto the state’s form and sign it the way that state requires. That’s what makes it legally official. CaringInfo has the free form for every state.
Find the state’s form →
A death doula
For the conversations that are hard to start
A trained, non-medical companion who sits with the values behind the wishes, and stays for the hours nobody else is paid for. Unhurried, and entirely human.
Find a doula →
Paying for care
Does the care count as medical care?
A two-minute check of whether the care you pay for counts as medical care under IRS rules, the test for using HSA or FSA dollars. It tells you plainly when the answer is no, and nothing you enter leaves your device.
Check what’s covered →
Help at home
Find the help you qualify for
Many families qualify for public dollars to help care for someone they love and never claim them. co-op.care, a worker-owned care cooperative in Boulder, helps find them.
Meet co-op.care →

Caring for someone at home? Bring the family doctor a summary, too. Six questions give you a plan and a one-page summary, on a related site: clinicalswipe.com/caregivers

Read it again once a year

What you want can change as your life and health do. Read this once a year, and again after anything big: a new diagnosis, a loss, a move, a marriage or a divorce. Your yearly wellness visit is a natural time, because your clinician can update your record at the same visit.

The reminder is a calendar file made on this device. It holds none of your answers, only a note to come back here.

You've just been trusted with someone's voice.

They named what matters, so you'd never have to guess. When you're ready, put your own wishes into words. It takes about twenty minutes.

Write your own

Is this your own document, opened on a new device?

There's no document on this device yet.

The Care Wishes document comes from fifteen short cards about what matters most to you, best answered with the person who would speak for you. It takes about twenty minutes, and your answers stay on this device.

Start