Health Care Power of Attorney

People living together may be concerned about who will have the power to make decisions about their health care in the event that they are unable to make such decisions themselves. For example, if you're unconscious from an accident or from the final stage of a terminal illness, who is authorized to make health care decisions for you?

If you want to designate the person you're living with to make health care decisions, prepare and sign a power of attorney for health care. (In the absence of a power of attorney, health care decisions probably would be left to your relatives, such as a mother, father, brother, sister, or adult child.) By signing the form, you designate an individual to make decisions about the use or discontinuation of health care. The form also may place limits on the power of the person who has the power of attorney for health care. For example, if you do not want a particular type of treatment or if you do not want your organs donated in the event of your death, you could specify that on power of attorney for health care.

The holder of the power of attorney usually is entitled to have access to the patient and to the patient’s medical records. The person with power of attorney for health care, however, is not obligated to pay the patient’s medical bills.

If you name someone to have power of attorney for your health care, inform the person who has been named and discuss the circumstances under which life support should be continued or stopped. This will make it easier for the person with power of attorney to make an appropriate decision should the need arise. It also is a good idea to give a copy of the form to the person who has been named (or tell that person where the form is kept). In addition, it is useful to give a copy of the form to your doctors and, if possible, bring a copy of the form with you when you are going to be admitted to the hospital.