Durable Power of Attorney for Healthcare
The Patient Self-Determination Act (PSDA), passed by Congress in 1990 requires hospitals, nursing homes, hospice programs, home health agencies, and HMO’s to provide its patients, at the time of admission, certain information about their rights under state laws governing Advance Directives, including: (1) the right to participate in and direct their own health care decisions; (2) the right to accept or refuse medical or surgical treatment; (3) the right to prepare an advance directive; (4) information on the provider’s policies that govern the utilization of these rights. The act also prohibits institutions from discriminating against a patient who does not have an advance directive.
Advance Directive is a general term for the legal documents that allow you to make important decisions about your future health care and end of life support before you become seriously ill or injured. These documents insure that your wishes will be followed even if you are unable to communicate. Advance Directives include Living Wills and Durable Power of Attorney for Health Care.
A living will may also be called a "medical directive", "declaration" or "directive to physicians". If you are unable to speak for yourself and terminally ill or permanently unconscious, this document gives written instructions spelling out any treatments you want or don't want. In essence it says, “Whoever is making the decisions, follow these instructions exactly!” A living will is very limited—it usually applies only to end-of-life decisions, and standard instructions tend to be general.
A health care power of attorney, sometimes referred to as a health care "proxy," or "medical power of attorney" is a document that appoints someone of your choosing to be your authorized "agent" (or "attorney-in-fact" or "proxy"). You can give your agent as much or as little authority as you wish to make health care decisions. The decisions are not limited to just end-of-life decisions. Appointing an agent provides someone with authority to weigh all the medical facts and circumstances and interpret your wishes accordingly. A health care power of attorney is broader and more flexible than the living will.
A comprehensive Health Care Advance Directive combines the living will and the health care power of attorney into one document. In addition, you may include any other directions, including organ donation or where and how you prefer to be cared for. Because it is more comprehensive and more flexible than the other tools, it is the preferred legal tool.
Once you have completed your Health Care Directive, keep the original in a safe place. You should provide a copy to your physician, your agent, a successor agent or other family member, any health care facility that will be treating you in the future, and your attorney. You could keep a card in your wallet stating that a health care directive exists and information on how to contact your agent. [1]
Affordable, easy to complete, do-it-yourself, Georgia Health Car Directive is one of our most popular templates. The template is available for email delivery for only $5.00. Please contact us for more information and payment options.
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