One Thing You Should Do This Year – And it Won’t Cost you a Cent!

By: Rick D. Massey, J.D.
Copyright © 2009

Who will make your most important medical decisions? You have the right to determine whether you receive (or are subjected to) medical treatment. But when you can't speak for yourself, you can only control what happens if you take the necessary precautions before it’s too late.

Under Missouri law, you can execute an advance healthcare directive (also known as a living will) that will determine in advance:

• Your decisions regarding important medical decisions


• The ability of healthcare providers to follow your direction without fear of increased risk or liability

Without an advance healthcare directive, your wishes may not be followed. As we have seen in Missouri cases such as that of Nancy Cruzan and in the later Florida case of Terri Schiavo, not preparing in advance can lead to devastating results for you and your loved ones. Your family or significant others may find themselves in a bitter dispute over what happens to you. This is even more likely if you have a domestic partner to whom you are not legally married according to the rules of the powers that be.

When combined with a Durable Power of Attorney, an advance healthcare directive can maximize the chances that your wishes based on your feelings, convictions and beliefs will be followed. Missouri law allows you to make all choices regarding medical care or the withdrawal of medical care. But you have to leave clear and specific details of where you want those boundaries to be.

The Forms Are Available Free

You can get both forms from the Missouri Bar website. If you also prepare a Durable Power of Attorney to designate someone to speak for you, you will want to make sure that you include a HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act) release to allow the designated individual to have access to your medical records and to permit your doctors to discuss your medical issues with the designated person. The Durable Power of Attorney is not necessary. But it allows someone you trust to make decisions about things you may not have thought about and specifically covered in your advance healthcare directive. You can also determine whether or not you want to delegate the power to override something you said in the advance healthcare directive based on changing circumstances.

Another document that contains some very useful information as well as planning forms and questionnaires for preparing your advance healthcare directives may be downloaded free at the American Bar Association’s Commission on Law and Aging website.

Preparing these documents in advance and discussing them with your family and healthcare providers is the best way to ensure that your wishes are likely to be followed. You should also know that under Missouri law you can verbally modify or rescind your healthcare directives at any time as long as you are conscious. So if they are wheeling you into surgery and you have second thoughts, don’t be afraid to speak up. Don’t leave your loved ones guessing about what you would want when you cannot speak for yourself.