After completing your medical care documents, validating and distributing the documents are crucial steps in completing your estate plan. As mentioned in the article A Coherent Estate Plan Consists of More Than Just a Will, a Living Will and Health Care Proxy must be part of the estate plan to make it coherent. However, completing the medical care documents is not enough. Each medical care document needs validation to carry any weight. Additionally, to make your medical care wishes known, distributing the documents to the proper people becomes necessary. Therefore, validating and distributing your medical care documents are important steps in the estate planning process. 

Validating Your Medical Care Documents

The process of validating your medical care documents is state law specific. In the state of Massachusetts, to validate medical care documents, the process is as follows:

• Two adult witnesses over 18 must sign the document and witness your signature.

• The witnesses cannot be your health care proxy, alternate health care proxy, doctor, or employees of the health care facility.

• If another person needs to sign for you, that person must also sign the form.

• If you opted to have an alternate health care proxy, that person must also sign the form.

Please note that in a handful of states, including Massachusetts, Living Wills are not legally binding. So, doctors are not legally obligated to follow instructions in the Living Will. However, Living Wills still offer dependable guidance to doctors and family members involved with your care. So, if you decide to create a Living Will anyway, validate the document according to state law.

Distributing Your Medical Care Documents

After validating your medical care documents, you should distribute the documents to the proper people. The distribution of the documents should include the following people or places: 

• Your primary care doctor.

• Take them to the hospital where you receive care and have them stored with your medical records.

• The patient representative for your health insurance company.

• Immediate family members, close relatives, or friends involved with your care.

• If family doesn’t live nearby, give copies to a lawyer or clergy that you are in regular contact with.  

Ultimately, distributing your medical care documents to people involved with your care will avoid any confusion about your care.

Storing Your Medical Care Documents

Fortunately, copies of valid medical care documents are acceptable for distribution. Therefore, keep the original documents at home in a place where your health care proxy can find them. When necessary, distribute only copies of the documents.

Although the emphasis is to distribute the documents after completing them, it’s not entirely necessary. Today, it’s not uncommon to change primary care physicians multiple times or change health insurance plans. So, to avoid distributing your medical care documents everywhere, consider distributing them at a later date. If needed, the health care proxy can make copies of the documents and distribute them to the proper people.

Conversely, if you feel comfortable distributing your medical care documents after completing them, then do the following:

• Create a list of all the people and places that received copies. This way you can retrieve the copied documents if you changed the terms in the documents. 

• Store the list with the original documents so that your health care proxy will know who has copies.

Regardless of when you choose to distribute the documents, completing the distribution is imperative to your care and to those involved with your care.

Final Words

Fortunately, you don’t need a lawyer or doctor to fill out medical care documents. In fact, all medical care documents for your state is in the Nolo Quicken WillMaker & Trust 2020.These are valid forms and the software is an easier option for you to obtain them and to fill them out.

Finally, an important part of your estate plan is to take care of yourself first. By validating and distributing your medical care documents you will complete the task and make your estate plan sound.  

Reference

Plan Your Estate– Provides valuable information on what medical care documents you will need.