Health Care Surrogates

This refes to the person you appoint to make health care decisions in case you are unable to do so. Florida law permits advance directive planning for heath care and end of life decisions through the use of a heath care surrogate designation and living will.

The drafting and use of these Florida documents are now made more complex by the privacy provisions of the federal "HIPAA" legislation, which generally restricts the legal ability of heath care providers, such as hospitals, nursing homes and physicians, from sharing your medical information with family members and even health care and living will surrogates designated by you. 

It is therefore strongly recommended that your health care surrogate and living will advance directives contain expansive HIPAA general release and related authority provisions, to provide maximum flexibility and authority to those surrogates to be able to interact with your health care providers with full information available to them at the time of need.

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