Quickly create your Maryland Health Care Directive and Living Will
You can complete FindLaw’s attorney-created health care directive and living will forms in less than an hour at home. Our guided process takes you through a few easy steps and includes a free HIPAA release form. You’ll be able to download, print and sign your documents in no time.

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- Being part of a blended family
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Do you have minor children?
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Do you want to leave gifts to people or a charity?
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Do you want to decide how your property is distributed when you pass away?
Do you want someone to handle your health care decisions if you are unable?
Do you want to specify someone who can make financial decisions for you if you are unavailable or incapacitated?
Do you want to specify someone who can make financial decisions for you if you are unavailable or incapacitated?
Do you want someone to handle your health care decisions if you are unable?
Do you want to specify someone who can make financial decisions for you if you are unavailable or incapacitated?
Do you want to specify someone who can make financial decisions for you if you are unavailable or incapacitated?
Speaking with
a FindLaw Attorney
- Being part of a blended family
- Caring for children with special needs
- Establishing and maintaining trusts
- …and any other concerns you have!

Estate Planning Package
For One Person
- Last will and testament
- Health care directive & living will
- Financial power of attorney
- Free HIPAA release form
- A comprehensive plan — for less
- Free changes and revisions for one full year after purchase
Financial Power of Attorney
For One Person
- Try our easy step-by-step guide
- Create your state-specific documents before you buy
- Only purchase if you are satisfied with your estate planning documents
- Create a power of attorney that’s customized to your wishes and your state’s laws
- Free changes and revisions to your document for a full year after purchase
Health Care Directive & Living Will
For One Person
- Try our easy step-by-step guide
- Create your health care directive and living will before you buy
- Only purchase if you are satisfied with your estate planning documents
- Create a document that’s customized to your wishes and your state’s laws
- Free HIPAA release form
- Free changes and revisions to your document for a full year after purchase
Last Will and Testament
For One Person
- Try our easy step-by-step guide
- Create your documents before you buy
- Only purchase if you are satisfied with your estate planning documents
- Create a last will and testament that’s customized to your wishes and your state’s laws
- Free changes and revisions to your will for a full year after purchase
Estate Planning Package
For Two People
- Two wills, health care directives & living wills, and financial powers of attorney
- Two free HIPAA release forms
- You and your loved one create your own estate plans tailored to your individual needs
- Attorney-approved documents customized to your state’s laws
- Free changes and revisions for one full year after purchase
Financial Power of Attorney
For Two People
- Try our easy step-by-step guide
- Create your state-specific, attorney-approved documents before you buy
- Only purchase if you are satisfied with your estate planning documents
- Create an attorney-approved power of attorney that’s customized to your wishes and your state’s laws
- Free changes and revisions to your document for a full year after purchase
Health Care Directive & Living Will
For Two People
- Try our easy step-by-step guide
- Create your state-specific, attorney-approved documents before you buy.
- Only purchase if you are satisfied with your estate planning documents
- Create an attorney-approved document that’s customized to your wishes and your state’s laws
- Free HIPAA release form
- Free changes and revisions to your document for a full year after purchase
Last Will and Testament
For Two People
- Try our easy step-by-step guide
- Create your state-specific, attorney-approved documents before you buy
- Only purchase if you are satisfied with your estate planning documents
- Create two wills customized to your wishes and your state’s laws
- Free changes and revisions to your wills for a full year after purchase
Health Care Directive & Living Will + Financial Power of Attorney
For One Person
- Try our easy step-by-step guide
- Create your health care directive and living will before you buy
- Only purchase if you are satisfied with your estate planning documents
- Create a document that’s customized to your wishes and your state’s laws
- Free HIPAA release form
- Free changes and revisions to your document for a full year after purchase
- Create your state-specific documents before you buy
- Create a power of attorney that’s customized to your wishes and your state’s laws
Last Will and Testament + Financial Power of Attorney
For One Person
- Try our easy step-by-step guide
- Create your documents before you buy
- Only purchase if you are satisfied with your estate planning documents
- Create a last will and testament that’s customized to your wishes and your state’s laws
- Free changes and revisions to your will for a full year after purchase
- Create your state-specific documents before you buy
- Create a power of attorney that’s customized to your wishes and your state’s laws
- Free changes and revisions to your document for a full year after purchase
Last Will and Testament + Health Care Directive & Living Will
For One Person
- Try our easy step-by-step guide
- Create your documents before you buy
- Only purchase if you are satisfied with your estate planning documents
- Create a last will and testament that’s customized to your wishes and your state’s laws
- Free changes and revisions to your will for a full year after purchase
- Create your health care directive and living will before you buy
- Create a document that’s customized to your wishes and your state’s laws
- Free HIPAA release form
- Free changes and revisions to your document for a full year after purchase
Health Care Directive & Living Will + Financial Power of Attorney
For Two People
- Try our easy step-by-step guide
- Create your state-specific, attorney-approved documents before you buy.
- Only purchase if you are satisfied with your estate planning documents
- Create an attorney-approved document that’s customized to your wishes and your state’s laws
- Free HIPAA release form
- Free changes and revisions to your document for a full year after purchase
- Create your state-specific, attorney-approved documents before you buy
- Create an attorney-approved power of attorney that’s customized to your wishes and your state’s laws
Last Will and Testament + Financial Power of Attorney
For Two People
- Try our easy step-by-step guide
- Create your state-specific, attorney-approved documents before you buy
- Only purchase if you are satisfied with your estate planning documents
- Create two wills customized to your wishes and your state’s laws
- Free changes and revisions to your wills for a full year after purchase
- Create an attorney-approved power of attorney that’s customized to your wishes and your state’s laws
- Free changes and revisions to your document for a full year after purchase
Last Will and Testament + Health Care Directive & Living Will
For Two People
- Try our easy step-by-step guide
- Create your state-specific, attorney-approved documents before you buy
- Only purchase if you are satisfied with your estate planning documents
- Create two wills customized to your wishes and your state’s laws
- Free changes and revisions to your wills for a full year after purchase
- Create your state-specific, attorney-approved documents before you buy.
- Create an attorney-approved document that’s customized to your wishes and your state’s laws
- Free HIPAA release form
- Free changes and revisions to your document for a full year after purchase
Benefits of having a Maryland Health Care Directive and Living Will
Health care directives and living wills ensure your health care wishes are known and carried out if you become infirm. Patients can leave individual instructions about end-of-life care and life-sustaining treatments. This way, family members and health care providers will know your treatment preferences and be able to make decisions on your behalf.
FindLaw can help you create a customized Maryland health care directive and living will to protect your interests and reduce stress on your family and medical team.
FindLaw provides everything you need:
- Learn about your options for a DIY health care directive and living will
- Use the guided process to create a personalized health care directive and living will
- Find out how to make your health care directive and living will valid
- Find answers to common questions about health care directives and living wills
Maryland Health Care Directive and Living Will Options To Fit Your Needs
Health Care Directive & Living Will
For One Person
A do-it-yourself health care directive & living will that’s easy to personalize.
BEST VALUE
Estate Planning Package
For one person
All the forms you need to create a personal estate plan
How It Works
Create your health care directive & living will in under an hour.
Answer Some Questions
Decide who will be your health care agent/proxy and which medical treatments you would request or refuse.
Create an Account
Creating an account is easy, quick, and secure. Save your information as you go and return when you have time.
Complete Your Document
Once you answer the relevant questions, we do the hard part and create your unique document.
Print, Sign & Make It Legal
Print and sign your document according to the instructions. Give a copy to your doctors and agent/proxy.
What’s Next To Make My Maryland Health Care Directive and Living Will Valid?
Follow these steps:
Choose your health care agent.
A health care agent is a proxy whose job is to make health care decisions for you if you cannot make such decisions for yourself. Your agent should be an adult that you trust to advocate for you if you become incapacitated. Your agent must make decisions based on your wishes and not the opinions of family or friends.
You should also consider finding an alternate agent. Your alternate agent should share the same trustworthy and decisive qualities as your primary agent. Remember that another agent will not make health care decisions for you unless your principal agent cannot or will not do so.
Make health care planning decisions.
The purpose of having a health care directive and living will is to make crucial health care decisions for yourself while you can. It is hard to think of not being able to speak, being permanently unconscious, or not advocating for yourself. Therefore, a living will is an essential part of your medical records so that in the event of incapacitation, your decisions will already have been made.
Some medical treatment preferences that you may want to consider when completing your health care directive and living will include:
- Whether you want to allow natural death or remain on life support in the case of a terminal condition
- If you wish to stay on life support if you are in a persistent vegetative state
- Preferences for care in your end-stage condition
- Preferences for pain relief
Sign your health care directive and living will.
Maryland state law provides that you must sign your health care directive and living will in the presence of two adult witnesses.
Notarize your document.
Notarization is not required in Maryland for your signature or the signature of the witnesses. However, it may be prudent to have the signatures notarized if your witnesses cannot verify their signatures. A notary page removes the need to have your witnesses independently verify their signatures.
Share and store your document.
Your health care directive and living will should be included in your medical records. Consult your health care agent about ensuring that your health care directive and living will is available to your medical team when you are hospitalized. Keep your document in a safe place and give a copy to the person you named as your health care agent.

You May Want to Speak With a Lawyer if:
- Your family disagrees with your medical choices
- You don’t know who to appoint as your agent
- You have questions about life prolonging measures
- You want legal review of your completed document
Ready to get started on Your Maryland healthcare directive & living will? It’s free to start.
Create My FormMaryland Living Will FAQs
A health care directive and living will, also known as an advance directive, is a legal document under Maryland law that states your medical treatment preferences in the event of your incapacity. This document protects you by keeping you in control of your medical care even if you cannot communicate your wishes.
In Maryland, a legally valid living will must be:
- Voluntarily made
- In writing
- Dated
- Signed by the declarant (you)
- Signed by two witnesses
An agent’s authority is limited only when you are incapacitated, meaning you cannot speak or communicate your medical treatment preferences. However, you can choose when your agent’s authority begins. You can choose to have decision-making authority when you sign the document or have the power come into effect once you become incapacitated.
A health care directive and living will can be revoked by the declarant (the person making the living will) at any time. In Maryland, a declarant can revoke a living will by:
- A signed and dated writing revoking the document
- A statement withdrawing the health care directive and living will to the declarant’s attending physician
- Writing a new health care directive and living will
- Destroying the document (e.g., burning, tearing, shredding, etc.)
No, creating a health care directive and living will and naming an agent does not mandate the agent to pay any of your health care costs.
You do not need to hire an attorney to make a legally valid Maryland health care directive and living will. FindLaw’s team of attorneys has created a form that will take you step-by-step through the process of completing your document from the comfort of your own home!
FindLaw is not a law firm, and the forms are not a substitute for the advice or services of an attorney. If you have a complex case, or would like a lawyer’s review of your estate planning documents, please visit our directory to find a lawyer near you.
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