What is a Health Care Directive?
A health care directive is a legal document that lets you name someone to make health care decisions for you if you can't make them yourself. The person you choose is called your health care agent. Your agent doesn't need any medical or legal training. They are simply the person you trust to speak for you when you can't speak for yourself.
A health care directive also lets you put your wishes in writing, so your agent and your doctors know what kind of care you would want.
Note that a health care directive is different from a power of attorney. A power of attorney covers your finances whereas a health care directive covers your medical care and personal well-being. If you wish to appoint someone to handle your health care decisions and your assets, you may need both documents..
What Does a Health Care Directive Cover?
Your agent's authority begins when your attending physician determines you can no longer make your own decisions. Until then, you remain in charge of your own care. Our health care directive gives your agent the power to:
Consent to, refuse, or stop any medical treatment, including life-sustaining treatment and artificial nutrition and hydration
Access your medical records, as your personal representative under HIPAA
Decide where you live when you need care and what is needed to keep you safe
Visit you at any time and in any location
Make and finalize your funeral arrangements
Your directive can also say what you want in specific situations. These sections are optional, and you can include as many or as few as you like:
End-of-life care. You can choose to be allowed to die naturally and kept comfortable if you are terminally ill or in a persistent vegetative state. You can choose to receive all recommended treatments. Or you can choose a middle path: intensive treatment for a set number of days, then comfort care if there is no improvement.
Organ and tissue donation. You can state whether you want to be a donor.
Disposition of your remains. You can state your wishes for burial, cremation, or other arrangements.
Intrusive mental health treatment. You can give your agent authority to consent to treatments such as electroshock therapy or certain psychiatric medications. Minnesota law requires this authority to be stated specifically.
Other instructions. Anything else you want your agent and doctors to know, such as religious or personal values that should guide your care.
Your agent must follow the wishes you state in the document, and any wishes you've otherwise made known to them.
Choosing your Health Care Agent
Your agent may one day decide whether to start or stop life-sustaining treatment, so choose someone who knows your values and will honor them, even under pressure from others. It helps to pick someone who lives close enough to be at the hospital, and who can stay calm in a crisis.
We also recommend naming a successor agent. If your first choice is unavailable or unwilling to serve, your successor steps in without the need for a court.
If you name more than one agent to serve together, you can decide whether they may act independently or must agree. If they must agree, you can name a tiebreaker to decide when they don't.
Before you sign, talk with the people you've chosen. Make sure they are willing to serve and understand what you want. A directive works best when your agent has heard your wishes from you, not just read them on paper.
When is a Health Care Directive Useful?
Most people think of a health care directive as something for later in life, but medical emergencies happen at every age. A car accident, a stroke, or a sudden illness can leave anyone unable to speak for themselves.
Without a directive, no one has clear legal authority to make decisions for you. Your doctors may turn to family members, but your family may not agree with one another, or with what you would have wanted. If there's a dispute, or if a provider needs someone with clear authority, your family may have to go to court to have a guardian appointed. That process takes time and money, and it happens at the hardest possible moment.
We see this often with adult children. Once your child turns 18, you no longer have automatic access to their medical information or the right to make decisions for them. If they are injured while away at college, a health care directive naming you as their agent lets you talk to their doctors and help right away.
A directive also takes a heavy burden off your loved ones. When your wishes are in writing, your agent isn't left guessing whether you would want a ventilator or a feeding tube. They can make the decision knowing it's the one you made.
A health care directive is one of the simplest and most important documents in an estate plan. It makes sure the people you trust can speak for you, and that your own voice is heard when you can't speak for yourself.
This article is for general informational purposes only and is not legal or medical advice. Reading it does not create an attorney-client relationship. Laws change, and every situation is different, so please consult an attorney about your specific circumstances before acting. This article addresses Minnesota law; the rules in other states may differ.