Keep Health Care Instructions on Your Phone

The estate planning document which addresses your health care wishes when you become incapacitated is referred to in Connecticut as your “Health Care Instructions”. This document is also known as a “Health Care Proxy”, “Advance Medical Directives” or “Health Care Power of Attorney” in other states. The document typically states who you have chosen as your representative when it comes to making medical decisions on your behalf. These decisions often include electing a certain type of surgery, medicine changes, therapy or discharge planning. It grants your agent access to your medical information, which is normally barred to third parties under the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPPA). In most cases, it also contains “Living Will” language, which lets your medical team know that you do not want to be kept alive in a genuinely hopeless situation.

In the world of your typical estate planning documents, this is the one potential “emergency” document, meaning that it may be necessary for family or friends to access this document immediately, without any warning. No other estate planning document really falls into this category. Therefore, making sure that the important people in your life have easy access to this document can be vitally important.

Many doctors and hospitals prefer to see original, hard copies of this particular document. Since medical providers can be very liability averse, they tend to get nervous when handed a photocopy of this particular legal document. Therefore, ideally, you should have several original copies of your health care instructions and they should be spread out amongst your health care agents, your doctor, your estate planning attorney and your own records.

I have some clients who keep an original health care document in the glove compartment of the car since their car tends to be wherever they are. However, there is one item that usually follows us everywhere these days, and that is (obviously) our phones. Therefore, it’s a good idea to keep a photo of each page of your health care document on your phone. Again, an original paper copy would be better, but in a pinch, a .jpg file is 100% better than nothing at all.

DISCLAIMER: This blog does not offer legal advice, nor does it create an attorney-client relationship. If you need legal advice, consult with a lawyer instead of a blog.

Save Your Health Care Document on Your Smart Phone

This is one of the better "document maintenance" tips I've come across: Keep a copy of your health care instructions (a.k.a. advanced medical directives, health care proxy) on your smart phone and have your health care agent do the same.

The health care document (a standard item in the estate planning "package") is what I would call an "emergency document" meaning that there may be a sudden and immediate need to use the document at any given time. However, it's hard to have your original health care instructions on-hand at all times. That's why having a PDF of the document on your smart phone can come in handy!

I can't quote a particular study, but I can state with confidence that a steadily growing number of my clients (of ALL ages, by the way) carry smartphones with them just about everywhere they go. This means that they have the ability to carry a copy of their advanced medical directives with them everywhere they go.

Please note that it's always better to have an original health care document on-hand.  That's because many doctors and hospitals get nervous when relying on something other than an original document. But it's certainly better to have a PDF of the document on your phone than nothing at all. 

Of course, explaining how to get your health care instructions document onto your smart phone is beyond the scope of this post.  Click here for iPhones, and here for Android.    

DISCLAIMER: This blog does not offer legal advice, nor does it create an attorney-client relationship.  If you need legal advice, consult with a lawyer instead of a blog.