Preparing to Address Potential Medical Decisions
There are specific documents or legal papers that should be part of your estate plan to address the potential need to make medical decisions. They designate someone to make those decisions and specify your wishes for care (especially end-of-life) if you can’t communicate, ensuring your values guide treatment, preventing family disputes, and avoiding court intervention, such as conservatorship.
Key Healthcare Estate Planning Documents:
- Healthcare Proxy (Durable Power of Attorney for Health Care or Medical Power of Attorney): Appoints a trusted person (agent/proxy) to make medical decisions for you if you become incapacitated. You can allow your health care agent to make decisions about all health care or only about certain treatments. You may also give your agent instructions that they must follow. Your agent can then ensure that health care professionals follow your wishes. Hospitals, doctors, and other health care providers must follow your agent’s decisions as if they were your own.
- Living Will: Details your preferences for specific treatments (like life support, feeding tubes, CPR) in end-of-life or terminal situations where you have become permanently unconscious or otherwise unable to make or communicate decisions regarding treatment. In conjunction with other estate planning tools, a Living Will can bring peace of mind and security while avoiding unnecessary expense and delay in the event of future incapacity.
- HIPAA Authorization Form: Grants specific people access to your protected health information (PHI), such as your agent(s), your successor trustees, your family and other people whom you designate.
- POLST/MOLST (Physician Orders for Life-Sustaining Treatment): A medical order form for those with serious illnesses, translating your wishes into actionable instructions for providers.