Health Care Documents
Health Care Documents
It is extremely important to have planned ahead and have properly prepared health care documents in place. Consider this scenario:
A person who has become incompetent, incapacitated or unable to speak is rushed to the hospital for an emergency. How are his/her wishes concerning medical care and treatment communicated to the medical providers? What will happen?
Every adult should have a durable power of attorney for health care. Depending on how one feels about life support issues, one might also want a living will. No formal law addressed these issues until 1991 when an Ohio statute was enacted creating the right for each person to have a health care power of attorney document and living will. A health care power of attorney appoints someone to make necessary health care decisions for you if you are unable to communicate your wishes to the appropriate health care providers. A proper health care power of attorney also includes alternate appointees, as well as their addresses and phone numbers, so that they can be reached on short notice or in case of an emergency. It is important that you appoint someone who is willing to assume this responsibility and who also knows your health care wishes.
A health care power of attorney covers all health care decisions with one possible exception. That exception comes into play if you also have executed a living will. A living will only addresses life support issues; but when it comes to those life support issues, it supersedes the health care power of attorney. More specifically, if you have a living will, you have already stated your wishes that if your doctor and at least one other doctor both determine to a reasonable degree of medical certainty that you are permanently unconscious or terminally ill, that you do not want to be kept alive indefinitely on life support if it is not improving your condition or making you more comfortable or easing your pain, and doing nothing more than keeping you alive. Typically, a living will also addresses the issue of “DNR” or “do not resuscitate” order and whether one wants nutrition or hydration provided if you are permanently unconscious. By having discussed these issues in advance and having executed a valid living will, one prevents family members from having to make what may be difficult and emotional decisions “in the dark”.
Obviously, it is important to plan ahead. Should one be incompetent or incapacitated or in a medical emergency, it is probably too late to execute health care documents. By law, incompetent individuals cannot execute health care documents. So, if a person becomes legally incompetent and does not have these documents in place, a guardianship action must be instituted in Probate Court. Guardianship proceedings can become expensive and unnecessary. This is why it is vital to have these documents executed and put in place while one is still competent and lucid. By doing so, one has made his/her wishes known in advance or has appointed a trusted individual to step-in and make those decisions on their behalf.
Attorney Joe Balmer, who heads the estate planning areas at Holzfaster, Cecil, McKnight & Mues, is one of only 20 attorneys in the Dayton area to have been certified by the Ohio State Bar Association as a specialist in estate planning, trusts and probate administration. If you are interested in discussing the preparation of health care documents or perhaps have an estate planning issue, don’t hesitate to call our office to schedule an appointment. Estate planning doesn’t have to be either expensive or complicated. Let us answer your questions! Call us at (937) 293-2141 or email us by using our form below if you wish to contact us online. Additionally, we have an emergency phone number, (937) 760-4357, that is answered by one of our lawyers around-the-clock.
