Advanced Medical Directive
Are you interested in having one on file?
The best time to prepare your Advanced Medical Directive (pdf) is before a circumstance arises where one may be needed.
An Advance Health Care Directive (or Advance Medical Directive) allows you to state what you want for your own medical care if you are unable to make decisions for yourself. You can:
- Direct that a specific procedure or treatment be provided, such as artificially administered hydration (fluids) or nutrition (feeding);
- Direct that a specific procedure or treatment be withheld or
- Appoint a person to act as your agent in making health care decisions for you if it is determined that you are unable to make health care decisions for yourself; this includes the decision to make anatomical gifts of a specific part or parts of your body via organ and tissue donation, or of all of your body.
Suppose you appoint a person to be your agent in an Advance Directive. In that case, that person has decision-making priority over any other individuals who could, by law, make health care decisions for you. For more information, visit the Code of Virginia portion of the Virginia General Assembly Home Page, and type in "54.1-2984" in the "Enter search phrase and click submit" box. You will get a search page, and clicking "§ 54.1-2984" will display the text in that Code Section. Additional Code sections amended in 2010 on this topic include §§s 54.1-2982 (Definitions), 54.1-2983 (Procedure), 54.1-2983.2 (Capacity) and 54.1-2983.3 (Exclusions and Limitations of Advance Directives).
The Code of Virginia also contains the "suggested" text that can be used for an Advance Medical Directive in Virginia. Advance Directive forms can be completed without the assistance of a lawyer, but you may want to consult one to ensure that you have completed it correctly.
Each year in the United States, April 16th is designated as Healthcare Decisions Day. This day is designed to raise public awareness of the need to plan ahead for healthcare decisions related to end-of-life care and medical decision-making whenever patients are unable to speak for themselves and to encourage the specific use of Advance Directives to communicate these important healthcare decisions. Please visit the Virginia State Bar webpage for more information and sample forms.
The Commonwealth of Virginia has a statewide Advance Health Care Directive Registry (AHCDR). The secure registry, available to all legal Virginia residents, stores documents that detail and protect health care wishes in the event a person is unable to speak for themselves. These documents include medical power of attorney, do-not-resuscitate orders and other health care wishes. For more information, please visit the Advance Health Care Directive Registry.
Note: This information was obtained from the Virginia Division for the Aging and Rehabilitative Services website.
