According to Texas law, an adult may prepare a written Directive to control the health care treatment decisions that can be made on that person behalf
|
Legal Document Preparation Service |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
In a Living Will you do not appoint an agent to make health related decisions for you if you are terminally ill. If you wish to designate such attorney-in-fact you need to complete Health Care Power of Attorney |
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|||||||||
|
|||||||||
|
Texas Advance Health Care Directive to Physicians and Family or Surrogates (Equivalent of Living Will) is an important legal document known as an Advance Directive. It is designed to help you communicate your wishes about medical treatment at some time in the future when you are unable to make your wishes known because of illness or injury. These wishes are usually based on personal values. In particular, you may want to consider what burdens or hardships of treatment you would be willing to accept for a particular amount of benefit obtained if you were seriously ill.
If you do not have a Medical Power of Attorney, you may appoint an Agent in this Health Care Directive. The person you appoint in paragraph 1.7 as your Attorney-in-fact (your agent) will make important health-related decisions for you if you are unable to do it on your own anymore. Before signing this important document you need to discuss your treatment with your physician and family members in as many details as possible, and consider types of treatments that you want/do not want to be performed for you when you are unable to express your wishes because of your illness. Please make sure to state clearly particular treatments you want or do not want. This legal document may not be changed or modified. If you want to make changes in the document, you must make an entirely new one. THIS DIRECTIVE TO PHYSICIANS AND FAMILY OR SURROGATES IS NOT VALID UNLESS IT IS SIGNED IN THE PRESENCE OF TWO COMPETENT ADULT WITNESSES. THE FOLLOWING PERSONS MAY NOT ACT AS ONE OF THE WITNESSES: (1) the person designated by the Principal as your agent;(2) a person related to the Principal by blood or marriage; (3) a person entitled to any part of the Principal’s estate after the Principal’s death under a will or codicil executed by the Principal or by operation of law; (4) the Principal’s attending physician; (5) an employee of the Principal’s attending physician; (6) an employee of a health care facility in which the Principal is a patient if the employee is providing direct patient care to the Principal or is an officer, director, partner, or business office employee of the health care facility or of any parent organization of the health care facility; or (7) a person who, at the time this power of attorney is executed, has a claim against any part of the Principal’s estate after his or her death. REVOCATION OF DIRECTIVE A Principal (a person giving this directive) may revoke a directive at any time without regard to the Principals mental state or competency. A directive may be revoked by:
An oral revocation takes effect only when the Principal or a person acting on behalf of the Principal notifies the attending physician of the revocation. The attending physician or the physician's designee must record in the patient's medical record the time, date, and place of the revocation, and, if different, the time, date, and place that the physician received notice of the revocation. The attending physician or the physician's designees must also enter the word "VOID" on each page of the copy of the directive in the patient's medical record. Except as otherwise provided, a person is not civilly or criminally liable for failure to act on a revocation made under this section unless the person has actual knowledge of the revocation. This directive is effective until you (the Principal) revoke it. |
|||||||||
| * * * | |||||||||
|
|
|||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||