Living Will Update – California’s New Physician Orders For Life Sustaining Treatment

On January 1, 2009, California enacted a new type of health care decision making document called Physician Orders for Life Sustaining Treatment (POLST).This form does not replace any advance health care directive. However, it gives elderly and terminally ill patients the opportunity to discuss with their doctor end-of-life decisions and to make those decisions become actual physician orders that all medical personnel must carry out.This document differs materially from the average “Living Will”, precisely because the POLST form is an order from your doctor. The legislature has also enacted immunity statutes that protect all health care providers who, in good faith, rely on the doctor’s reasonable orders that are contained in the POLST form. This protects medical personnel from criminal prosecution, civil liability, and all other disciplinary actions for unprofessional conduct.Typically, the POLST form’s orders will include decisions about whether artificial nutrition is to be provided and whether resuscitative measures are to be administered. However, other instructions can be included so long as both you and your doctor agree.Obviously, this is not a document to be taken lightly. It is imperative that you and your doctor engage in thorough discussion and consultation to access your medical condition, your anticipated quality of life issues, and then identify what orders would be appropriate.The POLST form should be carried with you and a copy provided to all of your health care providers.This form will help to ensure that you, or your elderly loved ones, have carefully determined what end-of-life decisions are desired and have received a physician’s order that they be carried out.