A properly prepared Appointment of Healthcare Representative document allows you to designate someone to legally act on your behalf concerning your health.
Previously in Indiana, you could have a Durable Powers of Attorney that would allow you to handle both financial matters and healthcare related matters. The state legislature then decided to have documents specific to financial matters and a separate document specific to healthcare related matters.
Now, in Indiana, there is a special Durable Powers of Attorney and a separate Appointment of Healthcare Representative. If you are incapacitated, your appointed healthcare representative can legally tell your doctors what healthcare to apply or perform; decisions to be made. As examples, these decisions could include whether to prescribe medication or to attach a ventilator for assisted breathing.
You can designate two different people to have your Durable Powers of Attorney and to be your healthcare representative.
For specific reasons, you might choose to have two different people make decisions on your behalf if you don’t want to burden one person (or trust one person) with both your healthcare issues and financial matters.
You can assign a person you trust to make decisions about your health as your legal healthcare representative. Then you can give Durable Powers of Attorney to a different person you want to legally handle your financial affairs.
Generally, the same person would have both responsibilities, but you could appoint two different people, if perhaps you had two children and one of them was more financially astute and the other was, for example, a nurse more suited to handle healthcare related matters.
For more information or to schedule an appointment to prepare an affordable Appointment of Healthcare Representative or other legal document, contact us.