WHO DECIDES IF YOU CAN’T?
HEALTHCARE POWER OF ATTORNEY
Use the Create Heathcare Power of Attorney Button
or Download the Power of Attorney Acrobat Form
WHO DECIDES IF YOU CAN'T?
It is your right to accept or refuse medical care. A Medical Power of
Attorney can protect this right if you are unable to communicate your wishes. Please take
the time to review this information.
Medical Power Of Attorney (MPOA)
Every year two million people die in America. Approximately 70 percent of these people
die after a decision is made to forgo life-sustaining treatment.
Medical Power of Attorney (MPOA) can help:
YOU protect your right to make medical choices that can affect your life.
YOUR FAMILY avoid the responsibility and stress of making difficult
decisions.
Your Phvsician or Health Care Professional by providing
guidelines for your care.
Montrose Memorial Hospital recommends that you create a
Medical Power of Attorney, such as the one linked at
the top of this page. Contrary to common understanding, in the state of Colorado neither
your spouse nor any member of your family may have the legal right to make medical
decisions for you unless you appoint them in a Medical Power of Attorney. The
hospital recommends that the person designated in your Medical Power of Attorney also
sign, to ensure she/he is aware of what is expected.
What is a Medical Power of Attorney?
In a legal document called a Medical Power of Attorney, you identify someone to speak for
you in any health-related situation in which you are no longer able to indicate your
wishes. This person acts as your agent and helps to ensure that your medical wishes are
considered. There are no limitations on the ability of the agent you designate to make
medical decisions for you, except, as you want to impose. You can indicate what kinds of
treatments or situations you do, or do not, want, either in the document designating the
person to act as your agent or in separate written or oral communications with this
person. A form for a medical power of attorney is provided at the top of this page.
What if I don't have a Medical Power of Attorney (MPOA)?
Because of pain, medications, or even unconsciousness, few people are alert until the
moment they die. Yet, in Colorado no one other than you has a legal right to advise your
doctors. Unless you appoint a MPOA, all of your family members must be in agreement, or a
court gives that right. Without a Medical Power of Attorney treatments that the patient
may not desire could continue, or you may not get the treatments you want. Your best
safeguard is to select your own decision maker and to give this person instructions in
advance.
Additional information is available by request.
Contact:
* The Case Management Department at MMH 970-240-7741
* www.partnershipforcaring.org
1-800-989-9455
* Hospice and Palliative Care of Western Colorado 970-240-7734
