Healthcare Surrogate Attorney in St. Petersburg

A Healthcare Surrogate Form can be most easily described as a Power of Attorney for healthcare situations. It allows you to appoint someone to be your health care agent, or “surrogate” in the event you cannot act for yourself. The document is an important part of your estate planning. There are a large number of rights and responsibilities surrounding the realm of medical and healthcare. Just about everyone will require some medical treatment or procedure at some point in time. Doctors and hospitals require a great deal of paperwork to be completed and signed by a patient or their guardian before they will perform all but emergency procedures deemed to keep you alive. They require that you give “informed consent” to most surgical and diagnostic procedures.

The Healthcare Surrogate Form will allow your surrogate to make most medical decisions, including those involving transfer to and from a healthcare facility, and give your surrogate the right to deal with your protected health information under the HIPAA law. The Healthcare Surrogate may not typically make anatomical gifts however, so you must take it upon yourself to complete an Anatomical Gifts Declaration if donation of any of your bodily organs is your ultimate desire.