Your right to choose your healthcare options
Thank you for your interest in Advance Health Care Directives! Advance directives are legally recognized forms telling your family and medical providers who you want to make medical decisions for you when you are unable to make decisions.
You can also use the advance directive to indicate the kinds of life-sustaining interventions you may or may not want when your doctor determines that you are at the end of your life, and you are unable to make medical decisions. Beebe Healthcare encourages every adult living in Sussex County to complete a directive and to share it with others. Regardless of your age or health, an Advance Health Care Directive protects your choices. The information shared on these pages will answer many questions. Please scroll through the list of FAQs on this page and select the topics of interest to you.
The Web links below connect to several different and valid advance directive forms, including an information packet and form developed specifically by Beebe Healthcare. Click on the link “Health Care Directives” to find the Beebe Advance Healthcare Directive guides in both English and Spanish. The Beebe forms can be completed electronically and printed from your computer. You will also find links to the popular Five Wishes planning guide, as well as the form endorsed by the Roman Catholic Diocese of Wilmington, DE, and the Delaware section of PREPARE, a national advance directive education service.
Beebe Healthcare Palliative Care Patients
Our Palliative Care team serves patients who want to maintain the best quality of life while living with chronic diseases. Patients enrolled in Beebe’s Palliative Care program can complete an advance directive during appointments with their Palliative Care providers. Click to learn more about Beebe’s Palliative Care Program. You can also learn more about the Delaware Medical Orders for Scope of Treatment (DMOST) by following the Palliative Care link.
Sincerely,
The Beebe Healthcare Patient Experience Department
About Advance Healthcare Directives
As a competent adult with decision-making capacity, you have the legal right to make your own health care decisions, and you have the right to receive this information in a way you can understand. Your Physician, Advance Practice Clinician, or another health care professional advise you and make recommendations about treatment, but you have the authority to say "yes" or “no” to any treatment that is offered to you.
If a medical condition causes you to lose the capacity to understand medical choices and make informed decisions, someone else must make decisions for you. If you are at least 18 years old, you may make a written "Advance Health Care Directive" to name the person who will act as your agent and make decisions for you. The directive can also provide guidance to your agent, your Physicians or Advance Practice Clinicians so they understand what you want or do not want when you are unable to decide yourself.
Under Delaware law there are three sections to an Advance Health Car e Directive:
- Power of Attorney for Health Care
- A list of Priorities for care planning
- Instructions for the use of life-sustaining treatments.
To be legal in Delaware, your directive does not have to be notarized. You have the option to use a notary’s services when you and your witness sign the form. Notaries who are employed by Beebe Healthcare may not be used for directives.
In the absence of a patient’s written designation of an Agent or having named a Surrogate verbally, or if the Agent or Surrogate is not reasonably available, any member of the following classes of the people associated with the patient and who is reasonably available, in the following order of priority, may act as a Default Surrogate:
- The spouse or domestic partner, unless any of the following are in effect:
- A petition for annulment, divorce, dissolution of marriage, legal separation, or termination has been filed and not dismissed or withdrawn.
- A decree of annulment, divorce, dissolution of marriage, legal separation, or termination has been issued.
- The patient and spouse or domestic partner have agreed in a record to a legal separation.
- The spouse or domestic partner has deserted the patient for more than one year.
- An adult child or parent.
- A cohabitant.
- An adult sibling.
- An adult grandchild or grandparent.
- An adult who has assisted the individual with supported decision making routinely during the previous six months, and who is not one of the people identified above.
- A stepchild whom the patient actively parented during the stepchild’s minor years and with whom the patient has an ongoing relationship.
- An adult who has exhibited special care and concern for the patient and is familiar with the patient’s personal values.
- If no qualifying close friend is available, a guardian may be appointed by the Court.
You should keep the original in an easy to find place and give copies to your Agent, your Physician or Advanced Practice Clinician, and your local hospital, so it will become part of your medical record. You can also give copies to close family and friends, your lawyer, and your clergy, anyone who may be involved in supporting your choices.
Delaware law provides that life-sustaining procedures cannot be withheld or withdrawn from a pregnant patient, so long as it is probable that the child will develop to the point of live birth.
State laws vary, but generally, medical professionals strive to honor other states’ directives. If you move to another state, you should make a new advance directive in that state. If you have a valid advance directive from another state, it will be valid in Delaware to the extent it is consistent with Delaware law. Updating to the most recent Delaware Advance Health Care Directive may be a good choice.
You can revoke your Advance Health Care Directive at any time by destroying it, or by making a new one. You should also inform your Physician, Advance Practice Clinician, and your Agent.
We encourage you to learn as much about advance directives as possible. If you have a question or would like assistance completing your advance directive, contact the Beebe Patient Advocate at 302-645-3547. You can contact the Division of Aging at 800- 223-9074, 302-391-3505 (TDD) or [email protected], or you may consult your personal attorney. Beebe Healthcare has formal policies on advance directives available for review.