Who decides about my care?
If you've written nothing down, your state's law decides. The NIA says that's typically your spouse, your parents if they're available, or your adult children; an unmarried partner you haven't named could be left out.
To choose the person yourself, you sign a durable power of attorney for health care. It names your health care proxy, who can make health care decisions for you if you can't communicate them. The NIA's plainest point is that your proxy can only act if you're too sick to decide for yourself; until then the decisions stay yours. You can name an alternate, and change your proxy at any time with a new form.
A living will is the companion document: which treatments you'd want and which you'd refuse, so your proxy isn't guessing. The NIA calls advance directives legally recognized but not legally binding, which is why the conversation matters as much as the form. Give copies to your proxy, your doctors and your family, and look at them again once a year.
What can the hospital tell my family?
The HIPAA Privacy Rule treats a person with authority under state law to make your health care decisions, such as your proxy, as your personal representative: for the records that matter to that role, the hospital deals with them as it would with you.
For everyone else, the rule gives providers some room: they may share with a family member or a close friend involved in your care the information relevant to that involvement, asking you first if you're able and using their professional judgment about your best interests if you're not.
If you want someone specific to be told, a HIPAA authorization settles it: a signed, dated paper that says what may be shared, by whom, with whom, for what purpose and until when. You can revoke it in writing.
Who pays my bills?
The mortgage, the electric bill and the insurance premium don't pause for a hospital stay. A spouse or partner who's a joint owner of the account can keep paying them. If nobody else can reach the money, the bills wait until someone has the legal authority to act for you.
Who can act for me on my accounts?
A power of attorney, the CFPB explains, is a legal document that lets someone else act on your behalf, and when it's made for advance planning it's generally durable, meaning it keeps working if you lose the ability to make decisions. Your agent can pay the bills, deal with the bank and keep the household running.
The CFPB's advice is to appoint only someone you really trust and to make sure they know your wishes; a lawyer's help to name an agent is, in the CFPB's words, relatively inexpensive, and PassOn's attorney finder searches by state. As a rule, a power of attorney works only while you're alive; after a death, the will and the executor take over.
What about my mail?
USPS Hold Mail keeps your mail at the post office for 3 to 30 days, requested up to 30 days ahead once USPS has verified your identity for the address. For a longer stay, USPS points to mail forwarding instead.
What PassOn does, and doesn't
PassOn doesn't grant, activate or end legal authority. Who may act for you comes from these papers and the law that governs them. A plan carries the instructions, not the authority.
What PassOn does is make sure the right people are told. Its Incapacitation Protocol lets you name the people who would confirm that you can no longer manage your own affairs, with a record such as a doctor's letter attached. You're told as soon as a concern is reported and can stop it, and a waiting period you chose comes first. If it goes ahead, PassOn tells the people you named as your medical and financial powers of attorney; your medical power of attorney sees the medical information you wrote down on a private page. Nothing in your vault is released to your beneficiaries. More on our page on your PassOn account if you're incapacitated.
