It may not be easy for patients to think about dying and what decisions they wish to make or have made for themselves at the end of life. There may have a lot of hard choices to make. As practitioners supporting conversations with patients about planning for end-of-life care you may find it can bring you peace of mind for your patients and their family to know that their wishes have been expressed and will be honored. Learning about advance directives can assist you in facilitating discussions with hospice patients and family member resulting in lower stress within the family unit. Practitioners will be better able to support end of life discussions which help patients identify wishes for their care when they are unable to make their wishes known. This presentation will provide an overview of the most commonly used advance directives in North Carolina. The scope, purpose, limits of and distinctions between each advance directive and how they related to medical orders. Additional discussion will include understanding how to resolve common issues and conflicts around who is the appropriate surrogate for incompetent patients and how to resolve family conflicts around surrogate decision making.