Accessing Services: How to Set Up a Health Care Proxy

Everyone should take proactive steps to plan for health care needs. One way to make sure that your health care wishes are carried out, whatever your future may hold, is to sign a Health Care Proxy form. A Health Care Proxy is a trusted friend or family member who will make health care decisions for you in the case that you can't do so yourself. For example, in the case of an accident that results in the loss of consciousness, hospitals, doctors and other health care workers are required to honor your proxy's decisions as if they were your own.

Assigning a Health Care Proxy

Information about the Health Care Proxy system is on the city website. The state also provides detailed online information in English and in Spanish as well, including answers to frequently asked questions about Health Care Proxies. Online, you'll find Health Care Proxy instructions and a printable form as well as related information about living wills and "Do Not Resuscitate" orders.

You can choose how much authority to give your proxy, and you may authorize all health decisions or only specific ones. For example, you may instruct your proxy to disallow such things as the use of feeding tubes or other life-sustaining treatment. And in your Health Care Proxy form, you may state your wishes regarding organ and tissue donation. 

Even if you have signed a Health Care Proxy form, you retain the right to make your own health care decisions so long as you are able. Treatment may not be initiated, stopped, or withheld if you object. In such cases, your proxy has no power to override your instructions.

More Information

• A Health Care Proxy form has the force of law, but you need not retain a lawyer to appoint a proxy and fill out the required authorization form.
• Two adults age 18 or over, other than the proxy, must witness your signature on the authorization form.  And your proxy must be age 18 or over.
• According to information on the state website relating to Health Care Proxies, '"Health care' means any treatment, service or procedure to diagnose or treat your physical or mental condition."
• Your doctors will decide when you are unable to make your own health care decisions. Then your proxy takes over.
• Before formally appointing your proxy, discuss your wishes with him or her. After the form is signed and witnessed, give him or her a copy.

Other details are online, including The Health Care Proxy Law:  A Guidebook for Health Care Professionals. The guidebook includes a proxy form and information about the law for patients and members of their families. If you feel you still need help, please call my office at 212-669-7250.

Comments

[Eileen McBride, Director of Patient relations, NY Community Hospital]

please advise where to find NYC Rules & Regulations 633.12 0r information regarding developmentally disabled clients writing a health care proxy