Health Care Proxies
Under Massachusetts law, if you are competent and at least 18 years old, you may execute a legaldocument called a Health Care Proxy, in which you appoint another person, called your "agent,"
to make decisions about your health care if you should become unable to do so.
The person you choose as your health care agent will be called upon to make decisions about
your medical care only if your health care provider determines that you are unable to make or
communicate such choices for yourself - if, for example, you were unconscious. Your agent is
required to make decisions that are consistent with your religious or moral beliefs, including any
instructions you may have put in a Living Will. If your wishes are not clear, or if they fail to
address the particular circumstance, your agent may exercise independent judgment about your
medical treatment, taking into account your best interests.
Your health care agent has a monumentally important responsibility: to make medical decisions
for you if you are unable to do so. Such decisions could include whether to sustain your life
support. For this reason, you should think very carefully about whom to choose as your health
care agent, and should discuss your feelings about your medical preferences with this person
before a problem arises.
Your Health Care Proxy, in conjunction with your HIPAA medical records release, authorizes
your health care agent to obtain copies of your medical records. You may revoke your Health
Care Proxy at any time in a number of ways, including: the execution of a subsequent Health
Care Proxy; divorce from your spouse where your spouse is named as your health care agent;
notification to your health care agent or health care provider either orally or in writing that you
have the specific intent to revoke your Health Care Proxy. Once you execute your Health Care
Proxy, you should provide copies to both your primary physician and your health care agent, as
well as keeping a copy for yourself.
Call us so that we may prepare this important document for you or someone you love.
