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Your Right to Make Decisions About Medical Treatment

This web page explains your rights to make health care decisions and how you can plan what should be done when you cannot speak for yourself.

A federal law requires us to give you this information. We hope this information will help increase your control over your medical treatment.

Q - Who decides about my treatment?

Your doctors will give you information and advice about treatment. You have the right to choose. You can say “Yes” to treatments you want. You can say “No” to any treatment you don’t want — even if the treatment might keep you alive longer.

Q - How do I know what I want?

Your doctor must tell you about your medical condition and about what different treatments can do for you. Many treatments have “side effects.” Your doctor must offer you information about serious problems that medical treatment is likely to cause you.

Often, more than one treatment might help you — and people have different ideas about which is best. Your doctor can tell you which treatments are available to you, but your doctor cannot choose for you. That choice depends on what is important to you.

Q - What if I am too sick to decide?

If you cannot make treatment decisions, your doctor will ask your closest available relative or friend to help decide what is best for you. Most of the time, that works. But sometimes everyone does not agree about what to do. That’s why it is helpful if you say in advance what you want to happen if you can’t speak for yourself.

An advance directive under California law lets you name someone to make health care decisions when you cannot. This form is called an Advance Health Care Directive.

Q - Who can complete this form?

You can if you are 18 years or older and of sound mind. You do not need a lawyer to fill it out.

Q - Who can I name to make medical treat-ment decisions when I am unable to do so?

You can choose an adult relative or friend you trust as your “agent” to speak for you when you’re too sick to make your own decisions.

Q - How does this person know what I would want?

After you choose someone, talk to that person about what you want. You can also write down in the Advance Health Care Directive when you would or would not want medical treatment. Talk to your doctor about what you want and give your doctor a copy of the form. Give another copy to the person named as your agent. And take a copy with you when you go into a hospital or other treatment facility.

Sometimes treatment decisions are hard to make and it truly helps your family and your doctors if they know what you want. Your Advance Health Care Directive also gives them legal protection when they follow your wishes.

Q - What if I don’t have anybody to make decisions for me?

You can can still sign an Advance Health Care Directive and just write what you want or do not want for medical treatment. When you sign the advance directive, you may tell your doctors that you do not want any treatment that would only prolong your dying. All life-sustaining treatment would be stopped. You would still receive treatment to keep you comfortable, however.

The doctors must follow your wishes about limiting treatment or turn your care over to another doctor who will. Your doctors are legally protected when they follow your wishes.

Q - What if I change my mind?

You can change or revoke any of these documents at any time as long as you can communicate your wishes.

Q - Do I have to fill out one of these forms?

No. You can just talk with your doctors and ask them to write down what you have said in your medical chart (Oral Directive). And you can talk with your family. But people will be more clear about your treatment wishes if you write them down. And your wishes are more likely to be followed if you write them down.

Q - Will I still be treated if I don’t fill out these forms?

Absolutely. You will still get medical treatment. We just want you to know that if you become too sick to make decisions, someone else will have to make them for you. Remember that:

• An Advance Health Care Directive lets you name someone to make treatment decisions for you. That person can make most medical decisions — not just those about life-sustaining treatment — when you can’t speak for yourself. Besides naming an agent, you can also use the form to say when you would and wouldn’t want particular kinds of treatment.
• If you don’t have someone you want to name to make decisions when you can’t, you can still sign an Advance Health Care Directive to say that you do not want life prolonging treatment if you are terminally ill or permanently unconscious.

Q - How can I get more information about advance directives?

Ask your doctor, nurse, or social worker to get more information for you.

The California Consortium on Patient Self-Determination prepared the preceding text, which has been adopted by the California Department of Health Services to implement Public Law 101-508.