Estate Plan Check-Up 4: Healthcare Power of Attorney

By Deirdre R. Wheatley-Liss, LL.M, CELA and Crystal West Edwards, Esq., CELA

For healthcare powers of attorney, there are three critically important considerations.

In order to be genuinely useful, you want your healthcare power of attorney to include:

1. the appointment of a healthcare representative
2. a living will
3. a HIPAA authorization

You can do these three things in three separate documents but, in most cases, we recommend that you have them all in one.

Health care representative. This is your medical decision maker. While you are alive, and while you have the ability to make your own decisions, your healthcare providers will always ask you how you want to handle your medical treatment and other health care. If you are able to speak, they're going to ask you to make the decisions.

However, when you’re unable to decide for yourself, you want someone you trust to be able to make healthcare decisions that are consistent with what you would want.

If you have a child who cannot imagine life without you ever – and who would never be able to say to a doctor, “my mom or my dad would not want to live like this, turn the machine off” – that may not be the person who you want to appoint as your health care decision maker. It's a personal decision, but you want to appoint someone who you think actually will implement the decision that you want.

Living will. The living will portion is where you say what you want to happen if your doctors felt that there was no medical likelihood that you would survive a terminal condition or illness short of a religious miracle. Would you want your healthcare representative to pull the plug or not? Do you want that ventilator or not? Do you want to have artificial food and hydration or not?

HIPAA Authorization. Finally, it is impossible for a healthcare representative to make an informed health care decision if they are unable to access your confidential health records. A HIPAA authorization is important because it allows your appointed healthcare representative to access the records that will be necessary in order for them to make an informed decision for you.

This post is for general informational purposes only. The information provided may or may not apply to you given the specifics of your situation. For a video presentation of this information, please visit Estate Plan Check-up. For more detailed information, please visit www.porzioplanning.com or contact us for a free 20 minute telephone consultation.