Medical Directives are important

As soon as your child turns 18 you may be legally unable to get important information about their medical conditions or be unable to help them.

Consider this true story that happened to a friend of mine. Your child leaves for college in your vehicle. On the drive to campus, your child is in an accident and ends up in the hospital. You, as owners of the vehicle are contacted. You aren’t concerned about your car however. You want to know how your ‘baby’ is. Your child is unconscious and needs serious medical attention, maybe a surgery---it doesn’t matter. You are far away. You are concerned. You want to know what is going on. The hospital refuses to provide you with any information. Why? You aren’t authorized. Your child is now an adult! Legally, you aren’t able to find out.

In the eyes of the government, turning 18 means parents no longer have access to the same legal rights regarding their children. Once your child turns 18, they should have a certain legal documents.

Medical directives name the person you want making health care decisions for you if you cannot make them for yourself. HIPAA is an acronym for a federal statute called the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act. The HIPAA Release is a document authorizing someone to actually obtain access to your medical records

Even if you have a medical directive for your 18 year old, without a HIPAA release authorizing you, hospitals and other medical providers are legally unable to let you know what is going on medically with your child. This would make it a little difficult for you to make health care decisions for them if there was an emergency.

I’ve had clients tell me the university nurse or doctor won’t discuss their child’s illness because the medical center’s policies regarding HIPAA.

The third legal document you absolutely need to have in place as an adult is a financial directive. This document names someone to make financial and legal decisions for you if you can't make them for yourself.

It's important for your kids going off to college to have this in place because if they are in an accident you are going to need to take over paying the bills and get access to bank accounts and make legal decisions.

Julia Nickerson is an estate attorney and probate attorney in Austin Texas. After giving birth to her oldest son, Nickerson almost lost her own life. She is passionate about building awareness of the importance of thoughtful planning. Julia frequently speaks to groups on estate planning issues throughout Austin, Texas. Julia makes it easy for your family to talk about and plan for tough subjects like money, death and taxes. Visit http://www.estateplanningaustintexas.com/ for more estate planning resources on how to make sure your family wouldn't have a mess on their hands if the "unthinkable" happens to you. Julia also counsels families on probate and estate administration matters and helps families with special needs children set up the correct special needs trust planning.