Make your health care wishes known

Although wills and living wills have confusingly similar names, these legal documents have very different functions. A living will , also known as a health care directive, is a document you can use to make your own health care choices in advance. In your health care directive, you can spell out which medical procedures you would accept or refuse in the event that you lose the capacity to understand your options and make your own decisions.

To make your New Jersey health care directive a valid legal document, you must fulfill certain basic conditions:

• You must be an adult with the mental capacity to execute a health care directive.
• You must sign and date the document or direct someone to do so for you.
• Your health care directive must be witnessed.

To satisfy the witnessing requirement, you have a couple of options. You can sign the document in front of a notary public, an attorney, or other individual authorized to take oaths. Alternatively, you can gather two adult witnesses who must sign your health care directive to confirm that you are signing voluntarily and that you are of sound mind.

If you choose to gather witnesses, you should be aware that you may not use your health care representative as a witness.

According to New Jersey’s health care statutes, a health care directive only becomes effective if your attending physician concludes that you cannot give informed consent on a certain health care decision. The physician must then put this determination into writing and enter it into your medical record. Another physician must then confirm this determination in writing. The exception to this would be if the incapacity is obvious, and the physician and health care representative both agree about that.

Of course, your health care professionals cannot honor the terms of your health care directive if they are not in possession of it. If you are hospitalized, you should make sure that your attending physician or health care institution has a copy of your health care directive at hand.

New Jersey law contains special provisions regarding the withdrawal of life-prolonging treatments. Under these rules, your health care providers can legally withhold life-sustaining procedures under certain defined medical conditions. They may withhold such procedures according to the instructions in your advance directives when one of the following is true:

• The life-sustaining procedure is experimental and unproven, not effective, or only prolongs the natural dying process
• Your attending physician and another qualified doctor determine that there is a terminal condition or permanent unconsciousness
• You have a serious, irreversible illness and, due to this condition, the life-prolonging treatment would be more harmful than helpful

With these rules in mind, it is clear that the provisions in your health care directive regarding end-of-life treatment only become operative in the event of severe illness or injury with little hope of recovery.

Under New Jersey health care laws, you can change your advance directives (including your health care directives) by creating new ones. You should use the same signing and witnessing formalities as you used for your original documents.

There are a couple of ways to revoke your advance directives in the state of New Jersey. You can perform a revocation by:

• Notifying your health care representative, nurse, physician, a witness, or another physician of your intention to revoke. This notification can be verbal, written, or otherwise communicates your intention to revoke.
• Executing a new advance directive that revokes the prior one. You can create a new health care directive with FindLaw from home, and it only takes about half an hour.

Any time you change or revoke your advance directives, you should be sure to inform the right people about the changes. You should tell your health care providers immediately if you revoke your health care directive. They should be well informed of your current medical care wishes.

It’s important that you provide your health care representative with a copy of your modified documents too. If you have substantially changed your treatment preferences, they will need to know about this change so that they can act on it.

Finally, don’t forget to let your loved ones know about your modified advance directives. By keeping the right people informed, you can rest easy knowing that you have made your medical choices known.