Video Summary
Does a parent need a healthcare surrogate for an adult child? The answer is yes, if that’s who the adult child wishes to make healthcare decisions for them. A healthcare surrogate is a designation of someone to make healthcare decisions for you in the event that you’re unable to do so. Usually a healthcare surrogate also has what they call a HIPAA waiver which authorizes a medical provider to release medical information to the person you designate in your healthcare surrogate.
So the adult child can name a parent or they can name anyone else they want to name as well as any adult concerned. So just because you’re the parent does not give you the right to make healthcare decisions for your adult child. And the HIPAA waiver’s important in the event that you wish to obtain the medical information or how the person is doing medically. And without it, the healthcare providers are supposed to refuse to give you that information unless there is a designation or a waiver under HIPAA. So I urge you to have a healthcare surrogate executed and designate who you’d like to make healthcare decisions for you in the event you’re unable to make healthcare decisions and provide them with a HIPAA waiver.
Usually these healthcare surrogates go from the parent to the child rather than the child to the parent but there’s certainly no prohibition or automatic right of a parent to get information on an adult child. So if you’d like to have a healthcare surrogate prepared call me at (727) 847-2288.