My colleague Michael Caccavo in Barre, Vermont recently wrote of another use for Durable Powers of Attorney. He said:

I would STRONGLY recommend a DPOA as well as a Health Care Proxy, a HIPAA release and the Will.
As an example of why it is necessary, my son was studying in Italy. His school loan got messed up and the lender wasn’t going to talk to me about it, unless he signed a permission form and sent it to them. Could have been problematic, but since I had a DPOA we could cut through it all and I could deal with things.
Too many things can come up and come up quickly and need immediate resolution, for someone leaving for that long to not empower someone else to take care of things.
The traveler should have a Health care proxy so someone can make medical decisions in an emergency. And the HIPAA is necessary too. ["HIPAA" is the Federal Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996, which bars most health care providers from disclosing private health information without authorization from the patient.] Sure the person is traveling abroad and they don’t have HIPAA, but if the agent needs to talk to a Dr. here, to get medical records or deal with the traveler’s medical insurance issues, the HIPAA could be required.
Planning these days is so much more than just a Will.

Michael is so right about that.