An advance medical directive includes medical durable power of attorney and Declaration as to Medical or Surgical Treatment. Medical POA is regulated by Colorado Patient Autonomy Act.
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Declaration as to Medical or Surgical Treatment (equivalent of Living Will) is designed to help you communicate your wishes now about medical treatment and regulated by Colorado Medical Treatment Decisions Act |
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In Colorado, a Living Will is called a "Declaration as to Medical or Surgical Treatment". The issuance of a Declaration as to Medical or Surgical Treatment is regulated by Colorado Medical Treatment Decisions Act. Colorado Medical Durable Power of Attorney (DHCPOA) is regulated by Colorado Patient Autonomy Act. Before your start working on your living will or health care power of attorney you need to know the following definitions: An adult is any person eighteen years of age or older. Artificial nourishment is nourishment supplied through a tube inserted into the stomach or intestines or nutrients injected intravenously into the bloodstream. A declarant (principal) means a mentally competent adult who executes a declaration. A declaration is a written document voluntarily executed by a declarant in accordance with the requirements of 15-18-104 of Medical Treatment Decisions Act. A life sustaining procedure is any medical procedure or intervention that, if administered to a qualified patient, would serve only to prolong the dying process. "Life sustaining procedure" shall not include any medical procedure or intervention for nourishment of the qualified patient or considered necessary by the attending physician to provide comfort or alleviate pain. A qualified patient is a patient who has executed a declaration and who has been certified by the attending physician and one other physician to be in a terminal condition. A terminal condition is an incurable or irreversible condition for which the administration of life sustaining procedures will serve only to postpone the moment of death. Any competent adult may execute a declaration directing that life sustaining procedures be withheld or withdrawn if, at some future time, he is in a terminal condition and either unconscious or otherwise incompetent to decide whether any medical procedure or intervention should be accepted or rejected. It is the responsibility of the declarant or someone acting for him to submit the declaration to the attending physician for entry in the declarant's medical record. In the case of a declaration of a qualified patient known to the attending physician to be pregnant, a medical evaluation must be made as to whether the fetus is viable and could with a reasonable degree of medical certainty develop to live birth with continued application of life sustaining procedures. If such is the case, the declaration is given no force or effect. Notwithstanding the provisions of a declaration, when an attending physician has determined that pain results from a discontinuance of artificial nourishment, he may order that such nourishment be provided but only to the extent necessary to provide comfort and alleviate pain. A declaration executed before two witnesses by any competent adult is legally effective. The statutory form is not required. In the event that the declarant is physically unable to sign the declaration, it may be signed by some other person in the declarant's presence and at his direction. A person so signing may not be:
If the declarant is a patient or resident of a health care facility, no witness can be a patient of that facility. A declaration may be revoked by the declarant orally, in writing, or by burning, tearing, canceling, obliterating, or destroying said declaration. Decisional capacity is the ability to provide informed consent to or refusal of medical treatment. The authority of an agent to act on behalf of the principal in consenting to or refusing medical treatment, including artificial nourishment and hydration, may be set forth in a medical durable power of attorney. A medical durable power of attorney may include any directive, condition, or limitation of an agent's authority. An agent must act in accordance with the terms, directives, conditions, or limitations stated in the medical durable power of attorney, and in conformance with the principal's wishes that are known to the agent. If the medical durable power of attorney contains no directives, conditions, or limitations relating to the principal's medical condition, or if the principal's wishes are not otherwise known to the agent, the agent shall act in accordance with the best interests of the principal as determined by the agent. An agent appointed in a medical durable power of attorney may provide informed consent to or refusal of medical treatment on behalf of a principal who lacks decisional capacity and has the same power to make medical treatment decisions the principal would have if the principal did not lack such decisional capacity. An agent appointed in a medical durable power of attorney is considered a designated representative of the patient and has the same rights of access to the principal's medical records as the principal. In making medical treatment decisions on behalf of the principal, and subject to the terms of the medical durable power of attorney, an agent must confer with the principal's attending physician concerning the principal's medical condition. A principal may revoke an agent's authority or the right to consent to or refuse any proposed medical treatment, and no agent may consent to or refuse medical treatment for a principal over the principal's objection. Unless otherwise expressly provided in the medical durable power of attorney under which the principal appointed the principal's spouse as the agent, a subsequent divorce, dissolution of marriage, annulment of marriage, or legal separation between the principal and spouse appointed as agent automatically revokes such appointment. Unless otherwise specified in the medical durable power of attorney, if a principal revokes the appointment of an agent or the agent is unable or unwilling to serve, the appointment of the agent is revoked. |
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