In addition to completing a Will and planning for incapacity, you likely will want to instruct your doctor, and any other potential medical providers, about whether you wish to have your life preserved by artificial means. One tool to accomplish this goal is the health care directive.

A health care directive is a legal document that expresses an adult’s wishes regarding the life-sustaining measures he or she will be provided in the event the individual reaches a certain medical status. A health care directive is signed as an expression of a person’s intent and preference, but it becomes effective only when a physician makes a determination of a medical condition that causes the directive to be placed into effect.  A physician thus must decide if and when the condition for enacting the document has been satisfied.

The statutory health care directive language states that the document will only be followed after an individual is diagnosed in writing to be in a “terminal condition” by the attending physician, or in a “permanent unconscious condition” with no reasonable hope of recovery by two physicians.  Any physician or health care provider who participates in good faith in the withholding or withdrawing of life-sustaining treatment, in accordance with a heath care directive, will be immune from legal liability unless negligent in his or her actions.

A health care directive must be signed in the presence of two qualified witnesses to be valid.   Additionally, attending physicians and the employees of the health care facility in which the declarer is a patient cannot witness the signing of the directive.  A person may revoke the directive at any time without any formalities.   In practice, though, the individual should notify health care providers, family members and his or her estate planning attorney upon revocation and should destroy all copies of the document.

With a clear understanding of its requirements and implications, a health care directive should be an integral part of any estate plan.