What is a Health Care Agent?

Vincent Averaimo • July 27, 2020

Part 2 in our new series: Are your Affairs in Order?

A Healthcare Agent is exactly what it sounds like. You are appointing someone to act on your behalf for all healthcare decisions. What does that really mean? First, we have the Living Will, that's the declaration. It has legal effect as we heard until you either pass or until it's revoked. The Health Care Agent form is basically a document, very much like a power of attorney, that states that if you can't make a healthcare decision on your own, the designated Health Care Agent will make that decision for you.

Ideally, this person that you’re appointing is the person who knows you very well, and is closest to you, whether a family member or a friend. This is someone that you feel comfortable with so that if you can't express your wishes in writing, they know you well enough to know what your wishes would be and would have the ability and the respect to make those wishes on your behalf if you can't do so.

So when does the Health Care Agent come into play? One example may be that you sustain a life-threatening injury. In these instances, you can't express your wishes to either the hospital staff or the EMS, your Health Care Agent is the person who would be able to make such decisions for you. Whether it includes surgery, whether include some sort of medication, whether it includes rehab, so on and so forth.

Here’s a personal example, just as my oldest child was about to be born, my wife had an emergency C-section, as she was in labor forever. I can't even count the hours. She remembers though! After many hours in labor, they finally rushed her into the operating room. They put some crazy Tyvec suit on me and said to me, “we're ready to go”! But, before went in, they asked me to sign authorization to allow the emergency C-section to occur. The reason why was not because I was her husband but because I was crazy enough to have everything all nice and organized when we were admitted in a nice binder for them which included a Health Care Agent document.

Just because you're married, doesn't mean that that your spouse has the legal ability to make healthcare decisions for you if you can't make them on your own. For example, maybe my in-laws would've had some issue with my wife having an emergency C-section. If that would have happened, there could have been a legal battle if I didn't have Health Care Agent document in place. And that's what you don't ever want to have happen in the medical world. You want decisions to be explicit and in writing. So that there can be no question as to what someone's wishes are. So I signed that paperwork off we went and I had a nice baby girl who did nothing but cry for six months! But now, 12 and a half years later, she's a joy in my life along with her sister.

So again, there are many hypotheticals that I could throw out at you based on my career experience. The reality of it all is that there is an instance in which the Health Care Agent form might have to be used. It is important for you to have during your lifetime. And frankly, the time that it would take to put it together is so nominal that it's really a mistake not to have it in place because the decisions or the consequences can be so extreme if you don't.

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