Video Summary
Do I need power of attorney for assets and a healthcare decision? Well, those, I usually do that in two different forms. First, let’s talk about healthcare decisions. That’s called a healthcare surrogate form. And whenever I prepare that, it has what they call a HIPAA waiver whereby you authorize someone to make, to be able to receive your medical information and authorize the medical providers to talk, to whoever you designate. It also then provides you designate someone to make healthcare decisions for you if you are unable to do so. And so that’s a healthcare surrogate, which is specifically designed to designate someone or several people to be able to make healthcare decisions for you. A durable power of attorney is one usually used to take care of your business, such as your banking, being able to buy and sell assets. And so that is why you would sign a durable power of attorney, to appoint an agent to be able to take care of your business. I know many powers of attorney do also authorize the make certain medical decisions, but the healthcare surrogate form is specifically designed for that. But the power of attorney can authorize the setup of what they call a Miller trust in order to help qualify you for Medicaid. And so it has to do more with your business rather than for your healthcare decisions. So, yes, I think you should have both of those, so that you have someone to be able to make those healthcare decisions for you on the one hand, and then on the same person or someone else be able to make business decisions for you. If you have any questions, give me a call at (727) 847-2288.