The Ohio Statutory Forms for the Health Care Power of Attorney (HCPOA) and Living Will have been updated for the first time since 2010. Three significant changes have impacted the new forms.
The first change is that two full pages have been added to the HCPOA for designating a person’s choice for a guardian if a guardianship is necessary. The guardianship designation is not new language for the Powers of Attorney that our office prepares, however. Our office has included a guardianship designation in our General Durable Power of Attorney (GDPOA) for years, so if you have a GDPOA prepared by our office, choosing a guardian is not necessarily a reason for updating your HCPOA to the new forms.
The second change on the new HCPOA is that the form now enables the “Agent” to sign a HIPAA statement on the person’s behalf. Once again, we have all of our clients sign a separate HIPAA form, so this is not a reason for updating your HCPOA if you have previously signed a HIPAA form at our office.
The third and most significant change is that there is a section on the new HCPOA that revokes all previously signed HCPOA forms.
Clients who call us from this point on to update or prepare new estate planning documents will receive the new HCPOA forms from our office; however, it is our opinion that clients who currently do not have any updates to their documents do not need to update their HCPOA to the new form.
As always, if any of your estate planning documents are more than ten years old, you should have your documents reviewed and updated to ensure that your estate plan still reflects your wishes and the current laws.