You Should Have A POA

Hello Dazzle! Thanks for coming and hanging out with me today, I’m glad that you are here. Today I want to talk about why I believe anyone that doesn’t have a legal guardian should have a Medical Power of Attorney. This is a legal document that grants someone else permission to make healthcare decisions for you when you are not able to do so for yourself. It also gives them legal access to your medical records.

In order to understand why I feel this is such an important document, we have to first talk about how the HIPPA Privacy Rule works. Under this law, there are two important terms that are used to govern the manner in which information is disclosed. Those terms are “required” and “permitted”.

There are conditions under which holders of your medical records must release them. These fall under the required rulings. Examples of a required release includes when you request to see your records and when the Department of Human Services requests to see your records. When a release of information falls under the required category, the holder of the records cannot legally decline to release the records. Doing so will result in legal charges.

When a holder of medical records is permitted to release the information, they have the legal right to choose whether or not they will release those records. Choosing not to release those records will not result in any legal charges against the holder of the medical records. The majority of requests for release of medical information falls into the permitted category.

The HIPPA Privacy Rule also states “A covered entity must make reasonable efforts to use, disclose, and request only the minimum amount of protected health information needed to accomplish the intended purpose of the use, disclosure, or request.” There are exceptions written into this rule, but it is important to know that your family is not one of those exceptions. These means that if a doctor is speaking to your family while you are sick in the hospital, the doctor is only allowed to disclose what is necessary and relevant to your current hospitalization and care needs.

What all of this means is that how much information providers will give your family and loved ones in an emergency or when you are incapacitated is entirely up to them. They are not legally required to give them any information about your medical status. Nor are they legally required to consult with your family or loved ones when making decisions about your care. This means that if your family tells the doctor that you would not want a particular procedure done, they are not legally required to take that information into consideration when making their decision how to proceed. They are not required to ask your family or loved ones for permission when providing you care.

Having a Medical Power of Attorney (POA) is the only way to legally require providers to have these disclosures and conversations with your family and loved ones. When you have a Medical Power of Attorney the providers are legally required to release information and consult with the POA.

Even if a provider wants to include your family, they would have no way of knowing who you consider to be your family. There is no way for them to know if you and your parents have been no contact for 10 years. They would also have no way of knowing that your room mate grew up with you and you consider them to be a brother. There is also a difference in having family that can have information and trusting that person to make the decisions you would want. You can be fine with your aunt knowing your situation, but not want her to make your medical decisions because you don’t share the same beliefs about end of life care. Even in good faith situations, providers would be left making their best guess as to who you would want to be included and excluded in your decision making.

Having a POA means that you can have conversations ahead of time to sort all of this out. Your POA should know who is supposed to be included in the decision making process, who can have information and who should be excluded. This means that your wishes are much more likely to be honored then if you are relying on a stranger to sort all of this out.

Additionally, having a POA funnels the communication to a single person. This means that there is one person that the provider is communicating with. This means that there will never be dissenting opinions to try to sort through. Even if someone else has a dissenting opinion, the provider knows who they are supposed to be listening to.

Life is unpredictable. We never know when something is going to happen to us that will put us in the situation of being incapacitated while needing medical care. Without a POA, you are leaving your healthcare decisions to the strangers that are at the facility the emergency personnel bring you to. They may or may not have access to your medical history. They may or may not choose to include your family in the medical decision making process.

If you are interested in getting a POA, the America Bar Association has a multi-state guide and form. They also have a great article that discusses this form as well as the best strategies for establishing a POA. In most states, establishing a POA costs nothing but some of your time; if you choose to use one of the free fillable documents. In the states that require the document to be notarized, it will cost a notary fee. On average, that service will cost you $50. Having a lawyer draft your POA will cost an average of $750 but will come with the added benefit of professional counsel, legal witnesses, customization, and quality insurance.

Well, that’s about it for my rambling today. Thanks for coming and spending some time with me. If you like my rambling then click on that like button. It really does help! Until we talk again, you take care of yourselves!