When Your Health Care Documents End

Your written wishes for health care remain effective as long as you are alive, unless you specifically revoke your documents or a court steps in (but court involvement is very rare). Here are a few specifics about when your health care documents are no longer effective:

• You revoke your document. You can change or revoke a health care document at any time. Just be sure that your health care providers and your agent know of your intention to cancel the document.
  
  
• A court invalidates your document. Most judges recognize that a court is normally not the right place to make health care decisions. However, if your health care is the subject of a dispute and someone questions the validity of your health care directives, the matter may end up before a judge.
  
  If someone doubts that you had the mental capacity to prepare a legally valid health care document, that person can ask a court to invalidate your document. Such lawsuits are rare, but they do sometimes occur. The burden of proving that you were not of sound mind when you made your document falls on the person who challenges its validity. (In other words, the law presumes that you had the mental capacity to make your health care documents.)
  
  It is also possible that a court could invalidate your document if it wasn't properly completed -- for example, if you did not meet your state's requirements for having the document notarized or witnessed. If this happens, however, it is still likely that any wishes for health care you set out in the document will be followed -- as long as they are clearly expressed and you were of sound mind when you wrote them down. In the famous case of Cruzan v. Director, Missouri Dept. of Health, 497 U.S. 261 (1990), the U.S. Supreme Court said that any strong evidence of someone's wishes for care should be honored. Your directions won't be ignored simply because of a technical error.
  
  
• A court revokes your agent's authority. If, after your health care documents take effect, someone believes that your health care agent is not acting according to your wishes or in your best interests, the concerned person can go to court and ask for an investigation of your agent's behavior. If a court finds that your agent is acting improperly and revokes his or her authority, the job will go first to an alternate agent you named in your document. If there is no available alternate -- or if the court invalidates your entire document for one of the reasons discussed just above -- a conservator or guardian will be appointed to make health care decisions for you.
  
  
• You get a divorce. Getting divorced has no effect on your written directions for health care (your health care declaration). But if you named your spouse as your health care agent, his or her authority is automatically revoked in a number of states. In that case, if you named an alternate agent, that person will take over.
  
  If you get a divorce before your health care directives take effect, it's wise to eliminate confusion by starting over. Even if you named an alternate agent, make a new document and name someone else as your agent.
  
  
• After your death. Generally, your health care documents are no longer necessary when you die. In some states, however, your health care directives remain effective after your death for some very limited purposes. Your agent may be permitted to supervise the disposition of your body, including authorizing an autopsy or organ donation, unless you specifically withheld these powers when you made your health care documents.