Free living will template

How to fill it in

A living will is about stating your wishes clearly, so take your time on the treatment choices and talk them over with your family and doctor. The choices are yours alone; no one should fill them in for you.

• Your details: enter your name, address, and date of birth, and confirm you are signing of your own free will.
• Treatment choices: read each option and initial the one that reflects your wishes about life-sustaining treatment.
• Nutrition and hydration: make the separate choice about tube or IV feeding, since many states require it stated on its own.
• Comfort care: the template directs that you be kept comfortable and free from pain; add any specific wishes.
• Other instructions: note any further wishes, such as hospice or being cared for at home.
• Sign it your state's way: sign in front of the witnesses or notary your state requires, using your state's official form where it has one.

Living will vs. the other documents people confuse it with

A living will sits among several documents that sound alike, and mixing them up is common. A medical power of attorney, or health care proxy, names a person to make your health decisions; a living will states the decisions themselves. The umbrella term for both is an advance directive, and many states fold a living will and a proxy into one advance directive form. A last will and testament is different again: it deals with your money and property after you die, and has nothing to do with medical care. A DNR, or do-not-resuscitate order, is a medical order your doctor writes in your chart telling staff not to attempt CPR, not a document you write yourself. A POLST or MOLST, which stands for physician or medical orders for life-sustaining treatment, is also a doctor-signed medical order, meant for people who are seriously ill so that emergency responders can act on it right away. A living will guides those decisions, but it is not one of these medical orders. Most people pair a living will with a medical power of attorney, so they have both what they want and who decides.

Your treatment choices explained

The heart of a living will is a set of choices about treatments that can keep the body alive when there is no reasonable hope of recovery. Cardiopulmonary resuscitation, or CPR, tries to restart the heart and breathing. Mechanical ventilation is a breathing machine that takes over when you cannot breathe on your own. Dialysis does the work of failed kidneys. Artificial nutrition and hydration provide food and fluids through a feeding tube or an IV line, and this one is worth deciding on its own, because many states require a separate choice for it and because families often find it the hardest question. For each, a living will lets you say whether you want it, do not want it, or want it tried and then stopped if it is not helping. Separately, comfort care, also called palliative care, keeps you free of pain and distress, and most living wills direct that comfort care continue no matter what else you refuse. There is no right answer; the point is that the choices are yours, made in advance, so no one has to guess.

When it takes effect and how to revoke it

A living will does not take effect just because you signed it. It applies only when two things are true: you can no longer make or communicate your own health care decisions, and your attending physician has determined that you are in a qualifying condition, usually terminal illness, permanent unconsciousness, or an end-stage condition, with many states requiring a second physician to confirm it. Until then, you make your own decisions and your living will sits in reserve. You can revoke it at any time, and the bar to do so is intentionally low: most state laws let you revoke by writing a revocation, making a new living will, telling your doctor or another witness, or simply destroying the document, and many allow revocation regardless of your mental state at the time. If you change your mind, tell your family, your physicians, and any health care agent, and replace the old copies so no one relies on an out-of-date document. Because rules on when it takes effect and how it is revoked are set by state law, check your state's statute for the specifics.

How to sign it, by state

How you must sign a living will is set by your state, and this is the step people most often get wrong. There is no single national rule, but almost every state requires the document to be in writing and signed in front of two adult witnesses, a notary, or both. The verified examples show how much this varies: Florida requires two witnesses and no notary, and at least one witness cannot be your spouse or a blood relative, under Florida Statutes section 765.302; California accepts either two qualified witnesses or a notary, under California Probate Code section 4673; and West Virginia requires both, with two witnesses whose signatures are then acknowledged before a notary, under West Virginia Code section 16-30-4. The one rule that holds nearly everywhere is that the people who witness cannot be your health care agent, your attending physician or facility staff, your relatives, your heirs, or anyone financially responsible for your care. Because a document signed the wrong way may be ignored at the very moment it is needed, use your state's official living will or advance directive form and follow its signing instructions exactly. The witness and notary blocks in this template are there to complete according to your state's requirements.

Can you sign a living will online?

Because we make electronic signing easy, it is worth being clear about where a living will is different. For ordinary contracts, an electronic signature is valid across the country under the ESIGN Act and UETA. A living will is not an ordinary contract. It is a health care directive, and how it may be signed is governed by your state's advance directive law, which in most states still calls for a handwritten signature made in the physical presence of witnesses or a notary. That state requirement, not the ESIGN Act, is usually what an e-signed living will fails to meet. The picture is changing but unevenly: remote online notarization is now allowed in most states, and a few, such as Washington under its Uniform Electronic Estate Planning Documents Act, expressly permit health care directives to be signed and witnessed electronically. Many states have not gone that far. So the safe approach is this: an electronically signed living will is valid only where your state law clearly allows it, and when you are unsure, sign on paper with the witnesses or notary your state requires. Use online signing for the ordinary documents where it plainly applies, and check your state before relying on it for a living will.

After you sign it

A living will only works if the right people can find it when it matters. After you sign it the way your state requires, give copies to your doctor, your health care agent if you have named one, and close family, and keep your own copy somewhere accessible rather than locked away. Ask your provider to add it to your medical record; a document no one knows about cannot guide your care. Under the federal Patient Self-Determination Act, hospitals and other Medicare and Medicaid facilities must ask whether you have an advance directive and note it in your record, so bring a copy when you are admitted. Review the document after major life events, such as a serious diagnosis, or a move to another state. States generally try to honor a directive validly signed in another state, but recognition is not automatic, so if you move or split your time between states, it is safest to complete your new state's form as well. Free official forms are available from state health departments, state bar associations, AARP, and CaringInfo.