Designating a healthcare proxy can have a significant impact on your health coverage and the treatments you will receive. Your proxy will legally have the right to insist on, or refuse treatment if you are incapacitated, or unable to communicate. You will be relying on your proxy to make medical decisions, and to deal with your insurance company on any issues that may arise.

The person that you choose to be your healthcare proxy should be someone that is willing to respect your wishes over and above their own. This can be a very difficult situation, particularly if the person you designate is a loved one. For example, you may not want to be put on life support in certain situations, but if your loved one can’t bear to let you go, their word will be the final say, not yours. Unfortunately, the opposite is also true. You may want to have every intervention that your health coverage could possibly provide, and your proxy has the ability to veto them all. Sometimes the best path is to combine the use of a proxy with an advance directive to ensure that your wishes really are carried out.

Advance directives are legal documents that specifically detail what you want the medical staff that treats you to do in case of an emergency. Combining an advance directive with a designated proxy gives you the best chance to have your wishes followed exactly in the event that you can’t tell anyone what you want. This strategy effectively makes your medical proxy a back-up to your advance directive. Your proxy will be available to handle any insurance issues that come up, and ensure your continued coverage. They will also be able to make any medical decisions not covered in your living will. The advance directive will be available as a guideline for the difficult medical decisions, and will take the emotional weight of the situation off of your proxy’s shoulders. You will be able to rest easy knowing that your wishes really will be carried out in the event of an emergency.

In order to designate a medical proxy you will need to fill out the appropriate legal forms. You are allowed to modify your representative’s power to make decisions on your behalf. You can be as specific as you like with the proxy’s restrictions. For example, you can specify that your representative not be allowed to do things like turn off your life support, even when you are unable to communicate. Overall, the use of a medical proxy ensures that you have the best chance of receiving the medical care that you want to have during a critical emergency.