Advanced Healthcare Directives (Health Care Proxies, Living Wills & Do Not Resucitate Orders)
Advance Healthcare Directives
The term “advance healthcare directives” refers to those documents used to control medical decision making upon your incapacity. The most common advanced healthcare directives include healthcare proxies, living wills and do not resuscitate orders.
Simply stated, a healthcare proxy is a document in which the person responsible for making your healthcare decisions is identified and given the authority to make healthcare decision in the event of your incapacity. Two issues are extremely important and often overlooked in many healthcare proxies. The first is naming at least one alternate person to serve in case your first choice is unavailable or unwilling to serve in the role. The second important issue is to be sure all of your healthcare proxy are also named as your HIPAA agent. The Hippa agent authority should be effective immediately upon signing the documents, although the healthcare decision making authority will not apply until such time as you are incapacitated and unable to make healthcare decisions for yourself. HIPPA refers to the “Healthcare Insurance Privacy and Portability Act of 1996”. This is the government mandated rubric of security and privacy laws specifically applicable to your healthcare records. Without being named as your HIPPA agent, your healthcare proxies are unable to access your medical records. This in turn means they are unable to help you in an emergency or make healthcare decisions for you while having the benefit of your complete medical history. The problems with this circumstance are obvious.
The second common advanced healthcare directive is the living will. A properly drafted living will should indicate to your physicians and healthcare proxies are regarding end of life “heroic measures” in essentially hopeless medical situations. Living wills were brought to national attention in the Terri Schiavo case. If Ms. Schiavo had a living will, she would not have been put through 15 years of institutionalization in a persistent vegetative state, and her family likely would not have been destroyed by the aftermath. One of the many lesson from her case is to be sure and make your end of life wishes known in writing. The default provisions of law forced on us all are often unpleasant, and almost always unintended. If you do not want heroic measures taken to preserve or prolong your life in the event of a terminal condition, an irreversible condition, or a persistent vegetative state when at least two doctors certify there is no reasonable medical probability of your recovery, you owe it to yourself to make your wishes clearly known, in writing and available to your healthcare proxies prior to your incapacity.
The third common advanced healthcare document is the DNR, or Do Not Resuscitate Order. This is an extremely powerful document frequently executed in error. In the United States, it commonly instructs healthcare providers not to provide CPR or advanced cardiopulmonary resuscitation. It must be honored under the 1991 Federal Patient Self Determination Act. A DNR is a fine thing to have if you are essentially at the end of life, have one or more terminal conditions, are awaiting the inevitable, and prefer to do so without being an experiment or a training case. However, if you are a younger person or otherwise healthy person with no clear and present terminal conditions, a DNR is not something you should execute. Think about it. If you were in an automobile accident today, wouldn’t you want everything done to preserve or prolong your life? Many people have gone on to lead extraordinarily rich and meaningful lives after requiring CPR or a short period of time on a ventilator for acute medical problems. If this is a possibility for you, isn’t having a binding legal document indicating your wish for nothing to be done on your behalf an ill considered idea?
Call to speak with Venice Attorney Michael A. Chiantella today if you have any questions about setting up a living will. Call 941-488-1779 or click here to contact us online now.