State-Specific Advance Health Care Directive Toolkit
Maintained
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USA (National/Federal)
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by Practical Law Trusts & Estates
PRACTICAL LAW
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Maintained
Resources that counsel can use to draft state-specific advance health care directives in various US jurisdictions. This resource aggregates advance health care directive Standard Documents and additional advance directive related resources in various US jurisdictions and includes links to a jurisdiction neutral advance health care directive Standard Document. This resource will be periodically updated with relevant materials in additional states.
A well-crafted estate plan generally includes a power of attorney and an advance health care directive. An advance health care directive allows a client to:
Name an individual to act as the client's representative to make health care decisions if the client becomes incapacitated.
Express their preferences regarding end of life care decisions.
Advance health care directives are generally prepared on state-specific forms and the rules that govern how they work depend on state law, so it is important that counsel attend to state law considerations before preparing these for their clients. The terminology for advance health care directives also varies from state to state. Depending on the state, the term advance health care directive may be used to refer to documents such as:
Designations of health care surrogate.
Health care proxies.
Medical powers of attorney.
Living wills.
Directives to physicians.
HIPAA releases.
This Toolkit contains state-specific resources to help counsel draft advance health care directives that comply with state law and includes links to:
State-specific advance health care directive Standard Documents and additional advance health care directive related resources in most US jurisdictions.
Jurisdiction neutral advance health care directive related resources which, in some cases, can be used to create state-specific advance health care directive forms that comply with applicable state law.
This resource will be periodically updated with relevant materials in additional states. For a similar Toolkit that counsel can use to prepare state-specific powers of attorney, see State-Specific Power of Attorney Toolkit.
This resource is continually monitored and revised for any necessary changes due to legal, market, or practice developments. Any significant developments affecting this resource will be described below.