What is a Health Care Directive?

A Health Care Directive (sometimes called a Living Will or Advance Directive) is a legal document that allows you to express your wishes for medical treatment when you are unable to express them or are near death. The document allows people who clearly do not want their lives prolonged to make their wishes known.

Your Health Care Directive is only used if you have a terminal condition as certified by your physician, where life-sustaining treatment would only prolong the process of dying; or you are certified by two physicians to be in an irreversible coma or other permanent unconscious condition and there is no reasonable hope of recovery. In either situation, your directive allows treatment to be withheld or withdrawn so that you may die naturally.

In your Health Care Directive, you may also direct whether you would like artificially provided nutrition (food) and hydration (water) stopped in the above situations. You may also give further written instructions regarding your care. If you have given someone else authority for making decisions, through a Durable Power of Attorney for Health Care document, you may also direct that person to follow and honor your Health Care Directive. You can change or revoke your Health Care Directive at any time.

Your Health Care Directive must be signed by you and two witnesses who are not related to you by blood or marriage and who will not inherit anything from you. Your witnesses may not be your attending physician, an employee of your attending physician or a health care facility in which you are a patient.

You are encouraged to discuss your Health Care Directive with your physician and family members. Any legal questions you may have about the use and effect of this directive may be answered by an attorney.

Download a Model Form

A model Health Care Directive form was included in state law RCW Chapter 70.122. For your convenience, we have taken the model form and created a downloadable Health Care Directive form (253 KB PDF).

On the form, you may add specific health care directions to meet your individual needs.  You are encouraged to print a copy of the form, complete it, and then mail or fax it to the Washington State Living Will Registry.

Adobe Reader® is required to view PDF files. You can download it for free.

For more information visit the WA State Office of the Attorney General website  or the WA State Medical Association website.