Health Care Power Of Attorney
What is a "health care power of attorney"?
A Health care power of attorney is a power of attorney that is conferred on a 3rd party agent to make medical decision on your behalf during a period of hospitalization or intense medical care, when you do not have the capacity to make your own decision in these matters.
How do various legal health care documents differ?
How do health care powers of attorney differ from general powers of attorney?
The healthcare power of attorney only relates to medical consents, withdrawal of life support systems and the like. The general power of attorney is a power over the assets of the principal. They could not be more different in their effect, they have a similar type.
Do I need separate attorneys-in-fact for my medical and business affairs?
As a general rule, I find that clients like to use the same person or persons, because those are the people closest to them; those are the people that they would trust in both categories of decision making. However, this is not necessarily the case. It is always possible, for example, that the person that you might be comfortable with to handle your financial affairs, would be unwilling (perhaps for religious reasons) to make the hard decisions in exercising powers under the medical power of attorney, particularly relating to the withdrawal of life support systems. Each client is different in that respect and has to decide whether the persons they select will carry out their wishes.
What should I consider when naming an attorney-in-fact for health care?
Your attorney-in-fact for health care has to be someone who shares your philosophy about life, medical treatment and death. Sometimes that's a tall order. If you select someone as your attorney-in-fact just to make that person feel good, you or your family members may rue that decision, because what you actually wanted to have done in a particular circumstance does not occur, because that person will not honor your wishes.
When does health care power of attorney go into effect?
The health care power of attorney can either go into effect at a time defined in the power itself, and that power can be determined based upon the condition of the principal, the individual who's conferring the power; comatose, completely disabled mentally, some condition which precludes the person giving a meaningful consent or instruction concerning medical care. What we do in our office is make the power effective immediately. The reason we do so is that under the new privacy laws enacted at the federal and California level, we believe by giving that power of attorney agent the power now, if later on, there is a need for that person to act, that person's current appointment qualifies him or her to release medical information that otherwise would not be available. It's a technical problem that has been created by the Privacy Act that we're simply trying to circumvent.
