…tion is intended to provide information on advanced directives, palliative care and hospice care, we have no issue. We are in accord that such information and services should be more widely available. However, we have grave concerns about certain language, definitions and requirements of the bill. As drafted, we believe that persons with disabilities may be pressed to end their lives or have their lives ended in a way not intended by the legislati…
…individual, their surrogate decision maker and/or their advance directive. Futile care policies have been discussed for at least two decades, under the public radar. A big part of many futile care policies is an Ethics Committee that holds meetings to persuade the family that they should agree with the doctor to withhold life-sustaining treatment. If the persuasion process is successful, the physician avoids the potential for litigation. This was…
…sumptions. Another way that advance directives are undermined results from futile care policies, which can be state statutes or medical provider policies, allowing the doctor to overrule the patient or family decision, or an advance directive, and deny life-sustaining treatment based on whatever medical predictions and quality of life judgments that they may feel are consistent with community standards. There are 3 Types of Futility Statutes in th…
…sumptions. Another way that advance directives are undermined results from futile care policies, which can be state statutes or medical provider policies, allowing the doctor to overrule the patient or family decision, or an advance directive, and deny life-sustaining treatment based on whatever medical predictions and quality of life judgments that they may feel are consistent with community standards. There are 3 Types of Futility Statutes in th…
…t of payment for appropriate physician-patient communications about health care decisions and advance care planning. We stated this in a 2013 press release entitled Not Dead Yet Provides Video and Written Comments on POLST to Institute of Medicine’s Committee on Approaching Death. More importantly, as noted in the recent U.S. News and World Report article, Is the ‘Death Panel’ Debate Dead?, our concerns about advance care planning discussions are…
