Health Care Directives

A Health Care Directive is a document that lets you give instructions about your health care and name a “Health Care Agent.” A Health Care Agent is someone you choose who can make decisions about your health care when your doctor determines you can’t make decisions yourself. 

You can name an Agent without leaving instructions about your care OR you can give instructions without naming an agent. Or you can do both. You choose. 

There is a sample Health Care Directive form attached.

 Or create a Health Care Directive online at: www.lawhelpmn.org/forms. This is a step-by-step interview that lets you print out a completed form when done.

• It must be in writing.
• It must be dated and state your name.
• It must be signed in front of a Notary Public OR witnessed by 2 people. Your agent or alternate agent can’t be witnesses or notarize the directive.
• It must name someone to make decisions for you (Health Care Agent) and/or give health care instructions.

Unless you limit your Agent’s powers, your Agent can automatically:

1. Consent to, refuse or withdraw medical or health care treatment for you. This includes intrusive mental health treatment.
2.  Stop or not start care which is keeping you or may keep you alive.
3.  Choose your health care providers.
4.  Choose where you will get your health care.
5.  Decide if you will live in your home, or a hospice, or a nursing home.
6. Review your medical records and have the same rights that you would have to give your medical records to other people.
7.   Visit you when you are a patient at a health care facility.

If you want to limit these powers, you must say so in the Directive.

Yes. You can give the Agent permission to do other things if you specifically say so in the Health Care Directive:

1. To decide if you want to donate any parts of your body, including organs, tissues, and eyes when you die.
2. Say what you want done with your body after your death (cremation, burial).
3. You can also give your Agent permission to make your health care decisions even if you could still make decisions yourself.

The Agent takes over decisions when:

• Your doctor thinks that you cannot make your own decisions, or
• When the Health Care Directive says the Agent can take over.

The Agent should make health care decisions as if they were you. They make sure the Health Care Directive is followed and should get legal help if it is not.

Your Health Care Agent must be 18 or older. Pick someone you know well and trust. They need to follow your wishes, act in your best interest and be available to your health care providers. Anyone can be your Agent except a health care provider or employee of a provider giving you care, unless you are related to that person by blood, marriage, registered domestic partnership or adoption.

You can also say in the Health Care Directive why you want that person to be your Agent.

It is very important to talk to the person you name as your Agent. Make sure they are willing to make your health care decisions if it becomes necessary. You also want to make sure they know what your wishes are for your health care.

You can name one or more Agents or alternates. If you do, make sure you say if the Agents have to decide things together or if they can make decisions independently.

A Health Care Agent is not allowed to do some things. They can’t:

• Use your bank accounts
• Make financial decisions for you
• Help you take your own life

Yes. You can cancel all or part of the Directive by:

• Destroying the original document on purpose.
• Telling another person to destroy it, including any copies.
• Making a written and dated statement saying that you want to cancel all or part of the Directive. If you are just cancelling part of it, say what part of the Directive you want to cancel.
• Verbally stating that you want to cancel the Health Care Directive before two witnesses. They do not have to be present at the same time.
• Making a new Health Care Directive.

Keep it with personal papers in a safe place where others can find it, not in a safe deposit box. Give signed copies to doctors, family, close friends, the Agent you named to make decisions for you, and the person you named as an alternate agent. Ask to have it put in your file at your doctor’s office and the hospital, home care agency, hospice or nursing home.

Maybe. Your papers are still valid IF:

• They have all the things listed in the section “What must a Health Care Directive include” 
• They were signed in another state and are still valid under the laws of that state.