This piece reports on the work of Lauren Nicholas, Kenneth Langa, Theodore Iwashyna, and David Weir, as published in the [*Journal of the American Medical Association* (2011)](http://jama.ama-assn.org/content/306/13/1447.abstract). The researchers found that, depending on where you live, an advance directive can increase the chances that your end-of-life care will be of higher quality and less expensive than it would be otherwise.

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