South Carolina advance health care directive template

You can complete FindLaw’s attorney-created health care directive 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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Reliable South Carolina health care directives

If you ever become terminally ill, you may lose the ability to communicate your own health care choices. Your doctors may then administer treatments for you that you would not have wanted. To make your own choices about medical procedures that only prolong natural death, you should create a health care directive. Although these issues are unpleasant to consider, it can be good to know that your family and doctors will understand your health care wishes and will not need to argue about your medical treatment.

Download the free South Carolina Advance Health Care Directive Template in PDF on this page. Make sure your loved ones know your wishes.

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Last updated: February 01, 2022

Written by:

Kimberly Lekman, Esq.

Contributing Author

Reviewed by:

Tim Kelly, J.D.

Contributing Author

South Carolina health care directive options that work for you

Health Care Directive
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How it works

Create your health care directive in under an hour

Create an account

Create a secure account which is accessible through an easy dashboard you can access any time

Gather information

Decide who will be your health care agent/proxy, which treatments you would request or refuse and release your records

Complete your document

Answer all questions, then we’ll generate your digital documents for downloading, printing, and signing

Make it legal

Print and sign your document according to instructions. Give copies to your doctors and agent/proxy

What’s next to make my South Carolina health care directive valid?

Follow these steps:

Make decisions on your medical care

A health care directive is a type of advance care directive (an “advance directive“). You (the “declarant”) can use your health care directive to make decisions on your medical choices in advance. To complete your document, you will need to state which treatments you would accept or reject if you ever suffer from a terminal condition or permanent unconsciousness.

If you would prefer a natural death without heroic medical treatments, you can make this clear in your health care directive. It can be tempting to avoid thinking about this scenario, but it may give you peace of mind to know that you have made your own decisions on potential future medical procedures. If you have any trouble with your choices, you should discuss them with a trusted doctor or loved one.

Choose a health care agent

In South Carolina, you have the option of naming a trusted person to make health care decisions for you. Their authority would begin if you become unable to direct your own health care.

The person you choose for this duty is usually called a health care agent (an “agent”). You may also hear people call them a health care proxy. The legal document you use to name this person is called a health care power of attorney (a “POA”).

You do not have to select a health care agent, but you may want to. It can be good to know that there is a trusted person ready to make treatment decisions for you just in case of medical incapacity. Your agent’s legal duty is to carry out the instructions in your health care directive. If medical issues arise that are not covered by your advance directives, your agent should act in your best interest with your personal preferences in mind.

Under South Carolina’s Health Care Power of Attorney Act, your health care agent must be at least 18 years old, of sound mind, and cannot be:

Your health care provider
An employee of your health care provider or nursing care facility
The spouse of your health care provider or their employee

The exception to the above restrictions would be if the person is a relative of yours. If your relative falls into one of the above categories, they may still act as your agent.

Many people choose a close loved one as their health care agent. You might consider your spouse, parent, sibling, or adult child. You should choose somebody who you trust completely with broad authority over your care. Your agent will be able to direct your health care and make any medical decisions you would have been able to make when you were competent to do so. They will have access to your medical records too.

However, if you wish to limit your agent’s powers or give specific instructions, you can do this in your POA document.

You should discuss this responsibility with your agent before naming them. You will need to make sure they are willing and able to carry out this important task. It is wise to select an alternate agent too. This person will act as your agent if your first choice becomes unable to.

Sign your health care directive

To make your health care directive legally valid, you must sign it and follow the execution requirements in South Carolina’s statutes. Section 40 of South Carolina’s Death With Dignity Act details the signing requirements:

You must sign and date your health care directive in the presence of a notary public and two witnesses. Neither of your witnesses may be your attending physician or their employee. One of your witnesses can be your notary public.
Your witnesses must sign an affidavit. This verifies that they are not related to you, do not stand to inherit from you, are not financially responsible for your health care, and are not beneficiaries of your life insurance. Further, you must notarize this affidavit.
No more than one of your witnesses may be an employee of a health facility where you receive treatment.

Note that there is an additional requirement if you are a hospital patient or a resident in a nursing home when you sign. If that is the case, then one of your witnesses must be an ombudsman. An ombudsman is a government-appointed official who can act as a neutral party to the execution of your health care directive. You can learn more about finding an ombudsman from the South Carolina Office of Ombudsman or your county government.

Distribute your advance directives

Once you have properly signed your documents, you need to make sure to distribute them to the people who are involved with your health care. Your health care professionals and family members will not be able to honor your wishes if they do not know what they are.

You should give copies of your advance directives to your health care agent, your medical professionals, and your close loved ones. You should store some extra copies in a secure place that trusted loved ones have access to.

Update your advance directives

After you have completed your advance directives, you should review them from time to time. This will help to ensure that they continue to reflect your treatment wishes. A good policy is to review your documents every few years at least. You may need to update your choices even sooner when major life events occur.

For instance, if you have gone through a divorce with your health care agent, you may wish to choose a new agent. After a long-distance relocation, you may need to choose a health care agent who is located closer to you. Further, a change in diagnosis or advances in medical technology could make you rethink the choices in your health care directive.

Whatever the reason, you can make unlimited updates to your health care directive at no extra charge for a full year if you purchase it through FindLaw.

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

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Commonly asked questions about South Carolina health care directives

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Is a will the same as a living will?

No. Wills and living wills have confusingly similar names, but they have very different legal purposes.

A last will and testament (a “will”) is the primary estate planning document. You can use a will to describe how you would like your assets to be distributed after your death. If you have minor children, your will can list guardians for them just in case you were to pass away before they become adults.

A living will, also known as a health care directive, is a document you can use to make health care choices in advance of a terminal illness or permanent unconsciousness. You cannot use a health care directive to provide for the distribution of your assets after your death.

It’s a good idea to have both a health care directive and a will in your estate plan. Your health care directive covers medical issues during your lifetime. But your will describes who will receive your assets after your death.

Is a health care directive mandatory?

No, you are under no obligation to create any advance directives. It’s purely voluntary and will depend on your preferences and individual circumstances.

Your insurance company and health care providers are not permitted to require a health care directive as a condition of treatment or insurance coverage.

It’s wise to sign a health care directive if you have an opinion on life-prolonging treatments. These include ventilators, dialysis, feeding tubes, and others. You can make choices about these procedures through your health care directive. Your medical professionals will follow your health care directive’s instructions if you become unable to give informed consent on your treatment due to a terminal condition or permanent unconsciousness.

Does a health care directive have to be notarized in South Carolina?

Yes. To create a valid health care directive in South Carolina, you must sign it in front of a notary public and two witnesses.

Generally speaking, your witnesses must be individuals who are not involved in your health care and who do not stand to benefit financially from your death. These restrictions help to shield declarants from conflicts of interest and fraud. The signing requirements for South Carolina health care directives are covered in more detail in the steps above.

Do my doctors have to follow the instructions in my health care directive?

Yes, your doctors have a legal duty to honor the wishes you expressed in your health care directive.

If your doctors refuse to carry out the terms of your advance directives, they are legally required to make reasonable efforts to transfer you to another physician. Failure to do this qualifies as unprofessional conduct under South Carolina law.

When do my health care directive instructions go into effect?

The instructions in your health care directive do not become effective just because you are hospitalized or going through a medical emergency. South Carolina law contains strict provisions that only allow the withdrawal of life-prolonging procedures under specific conditions.

Under section 30 of the Death With Dignity Act, medical providers can only withdraw or withhold a life-sustaining procedure in accordance with your health care directive in the event of:

A terminal condition
Permanent unconsciousness

A terminal condition is an incurable medical condition. It could cause death within a short period of time if doctors do not administer life-prolonging procedures. This diagnosis must be made by the attending physician and another physician to a reasonable degree of medical certainty before they can withdraw life-prolonging procedures.

Permanent unconsciousness means an irreversible condition or persistent vegetative state where there is no cognitive functioning. The attending physician and another physician must agree on this diagnosis. Further, doctors in South Carolina can only make the determination of permanent unconsciousness after at least 90 days of consecutive unconsciousness. The only exception to this would be if there was massive brain damage that doctors can detect through neurodiagnostic studies or inspection.

To summarize, your health care directive only becomes operative if you are suffering from a life-ending medical diagnosis of either a terminal condition or permanent unconsciousness.

How can I revoke my health care directive?

Under South Carolina law, there are a few methods for revoking a health care directive:

Tear up, deface, obliterate, or otherwise physically destroy your document. You need to inform your attending physician of your revocation in order for it to become legally valid.
Make a verbal statement of your intent to revoke. You must communicate this revocation to your attending physician.
Sign and date a written revocation.
Create a new health care directive.

If you are unable to communicate your verbal revocation to your physician, somebody else can inform the physician of it. But this is only permitted under certain circumstances:

The other individual must have been present when you made the oral revocation
The physician must have received notification of this revocation within a reasonable time
Your attending physician cannot confirm this revocation with you due to your deteriorated condition

If all of the above are true, then somebody else can communicate your oral revocation to your attending physician on your behalf.

Physical cancellation and oral expression are acceptable revocation procedures. But it’s better to create a written record of your health care wishes. A good way to do this is to create a new health care directive.

You can create a new health care directive that revokes your prior one with FindLaw’s guided process. It takes less than an hour, and you can complete the process from anywhere.

After you revoke your advance directives or create new ones, you should tell your health care agent, loved ones, and physicians. If you are hospitalized, you should inform your attending physician of the changes as soon as possible. Your revocation will not be effective until you have informed them of it.

Complex family situation? Need additional guidance?

Contact a local estate planning attorney.