Advance Care Planning

A healthcare power of attorney is a legal document in which you name another person, called a "healthcare agent," to make healthcare decisions for you when you are not able to make those decisions for yourself.

Any competent person who is at least 18 years old and who is not your paid healthcare provider may be your healthcare agent.

You should choose your healthcare agent very carefully, because that person will have broad authority to make decisions about your healthcare. A good healthcare agent is someone who knows you well, is available to represent you when needed, and is willing to honor your wishes. It is very important to talk with your healthcare agent about your goals and wishes for your future healthcare, so that he or she will know what care you want.

Unless you limit the power of your healthcare agent, your healthcare agent can make all healthcare decisions for you, including:

• Starting or stopping life-prolonging measures.
• Decisions about mental health treatment.
• Choosing your doctors and facilities.
• Reviewing and sharing your medical information.
• Autopsies and disposition of your body after death.

Yes, if you choose to give your healthcare agent this power on your directive.

It will become effective if your doctor determines that you have lost the ability to make your own healthcare decisions.

If you are competent, you may revoke this healthcare power of attorney in any way that makes clear your desire to revoke it. For example, you may destroy this document, write "void" across this document, tell your doctor that you are revoking the document, or complete a new healthcare power of attorney.

If you do not have a healthcare agent, North Carolina law requires healthcare providers to look to the following individuals, in the order listed below: legal guardian; an attorney-in-fact under a general power of attorney (POA) if that POA includes the right to make healthcare decisions; a husband or wife; a majority of your parents and adult children; a majority of your adult brothers and sisters; or an individual who has an established relationship with you, who is acting in good faith and who can convey your wishes. If there is no one, the law allows your doctor to make decisions for you as long as another doctor agrees with those decisions.

In North Carolina, a living will lets you state your desire not to receive life-prolonging measures in any or all of the following situations:

• You have a condition that is incurable that will result in your death within a short period of time.
• You are unconscious, and your doctors are confident that you cannot regain consciousness.
• You have advanced dementia or other substantial and irreversible loss of mental function.

Life-prolonging measures are medical treatments that would only serve to postpone death, including breathing machines, kidney dialysis, antibiotics, tube feeding (artificial nutrition and hydration), and similar forms of treatment.

Yes, in certain circumstances. If you are able to express your wishes, you may refuse life-prolonging measures. If you are not able to express your wishes, then permission must be obtained from those individuals who are making decisions on your behalf.

You may express your wish to receive tube feeding in all circumstances.

You may revoke this living will by clearly stating or writing in any clear manner that you wish to do so. For example, you may destroy the document, write "void" across the document, tell your doctor that you are revoking the document, or complete a new living will.