At the age of 89, Al Hooke is in good health. He knows that won't last forever.
"When you get to the point where your health is going down the drain, what do you want to have done?"
Hooke was faced with that question when his 103-year-old mother was nearing the end of her life.
"They just wouldn't let her die," Hooke said. "It was a good lesson to me that you don't wait until the very end to get these forms signed."
The forms are 'MOLST' - Medical Orders for Life-Sustaining Treatment forms. They allow the patient to make it known what kind of care they want at the end of their life.
Governor Paterson recently made the forms law.
"The MOLST program is a concrete project that has now been adopted across the state," said Dr. Patricia Bomba of Excellus BlueCross BlueShield.
Medical Orders for Life-Sustaining Treatment forms allow a patient to make it known what kind of care they want at the end of their life.
Bomba spearheaded the program. She says it expands a person's treatment choices beyond resuscitation.
"And basically saying, do you really want to be on a breathing machine, your choices for feeding tubes, so it really broadens the choices."
Flora Allen watched her father slowly deteriorate from Parkinson's disease. She says the form helped her family reluctantly let go.
"The form was the insurance and assurance that my father's wishes would be carried out," said Allen.
The forms need to be signed by licensed physicians and should be kept where paramedics can see them.
"That's something I ought to think about and talk about," said Hooke.
Watching what happened to his mother, Hooke says filling out the MOLST form is the best thing he can do to ensure his life ends on his terms.
"When I heard about this, it's exactly what she needed, and what older people are going to need in the future."