Medicare as of January 1, 2016 will start paying for patients to have conversations with their doctors about how they would like to die.

In a thought-provoking New York Times article, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Tina Rosenberg makes a powerful argument for why people should take advantage of this new provision.

I’ve written about advance care planning before, and it bears repeating. We all have to die eventually, and most people say they want to do it at home, in their own bed surrounded by friends and family. Yet in reality, most Americans die in a hospital bed surrounded by doctors and nurses, often being poked and prodded with machines.

One of the most intimate decisions in life is how it should end, yet far too many people never get the chance to make it.

The law does offer all of us the chance to have some input into how we die, by creating an advance directive for health care. A healthcare directive is a legal document in which you can appoint an agent to make health care decisions when you’re unable to. You can also set forth your wishes regarding medical treatment, including end of life care, which healthcare providers must follow.

However, Rosenberg argues that creating a healthcare directive is only the start of advance care planning, and I agree with her. People on Medicare should take advantage of the new program and talk to their doctors about what end-of-life care really entails. (Insurers will probably start paying for these conversations as well, so soon everyone will be able to talk to their doctors about end-of-life care.)

Most importantly, everyone should talk to their family about their wishes regarding end-of-life care. The conversation may be daunting or seem morbid, but if your family has to make a decision for you, it will be vastly easier for them to make peace with that decision if they can follow your wishes, instead of wondering ever after what your wishes were.