Colorado Living Will Requirements

Colorado's living will is a legally separate document, the 'declaration as to medical treatment,' created under the Colorado Medical Treatment Decision Act. This is a different statute, in a different article of Title 15, from Colorado's medical durable power of attorney. Unlike California, Colorado does not print a fill-in-the-blank statutory form inside the Act itself; the statute sets substantive and execution requirements a declaration must meet, and hospitals and bar associations separately publish suggested forms that implement those requirements.

A declaration must be signed by you (or by another adult at your direction and in your presence) and either signed in the presence of two witnesses or signed and acknowledged before a notary public.

A witness, notary, or person signing on your behalf may not be your attending physician or any other physician, an employee of your physician or the health care facility where you are a patient, a person with a claim against your estate, or a person who would inherit from you as a will beneficiary or heir at law.

Colorado Revised Statutes Section 15-18-103 defines a 'terminal condition' as an incurable or irreversible condition for which the administration of life-sustaining procedures will serve only to prolong the dying process. This is one of exactly two conditions (the other being persistent vegetative state) that can trigger your declaration.

Colorado recognizes exactly two conditions that can trigger a declaration: a terminal condition or a persistent vegetative state, each requiring you to also lack decisional capacity. Persistent vegetative state is defined in Section 15-18-103's definitions, and applied as a trigger in Section 15-18-104's declaration itself.

Colorado requires your declaration to address artificial nutrition and hydration as its own separate written statement, distinct from your general life-sustaining-treatment instruction, with three options: not continued, continued for a specified period, or continued. A physician may still provide nutrition or hydration to relieve pain despite a declaration to withhold it.

You may revoke your declaration at any time, orally, in writing, or by burning, tearing, canceling, obliterating, or destroying it. Colorado does not require a fixed method or a separate capacity determination for revocation.

An attending physician or advanced practice registered nurse who refuses to comply with a facially valid declaration must transfer your care to another physician or advanced practice registered nurse who will honor it. Failing to comply or transfer is unprofessional conduct subject to discipline.

If you have no declaration and no medical power of attorney agent, Colorado law supplies a default proxy decision-maker drawn from a statutory list of interested people (spouse, parent, adult child, sibling, or close friend), or as a last resort a physician-selected proxy with ethics-committee involvement. This is a fallback mechanism that applies in the absence of your own planning, not something you personally designate.

Colorado's CPR directive, under Article 18.6, is a third, narrower instrument separate from your declaration. It lets you specifically direct that CPR not be administered, particularly outside a hospital setting. It is not part of, and does not need to be integrated into, your Section 15-18-104 declaration, though the two can be used together.

Federal HIPAA regulations govern how a health care agent you separately name can be authorized to access your protected health information. This authorization supports the agent-decision-maker side of your planning; it does not change or expand your own treatment-wishes declaration.

Federal law requires Medicare- and Medicaid-participating hospitals, nursing homes, and other facilities to inform patients in writing of their right under Colorado law to make an advance directive, including stating their own treatment wishes.

A declaration validly executed under another state's law is recognized as effective for use in Colorado. Colorado law also limits who may challenge your declaration's validity in court to specific people, such as your spouse, parent, adult child, or power of attorney agent, and requires the court to appoint a guardian ad litem for you.

Colorado's Revised Uniform Anatomical Gift Act, Article 19 Part 2, lets you authorize organ and tissue donation, and your declaration may include or reference organ-donation preferences alongside your treatment-wishes instructions.

Colorado once gave a declaration no force or effect during pregnancy if the fetus was viable, under former Colorado Revised Statutes Section 15-18-104(2). That provision was repealed by Senate Bill 21-193, 'Protection of Pregnant People in Perinatal Period,' effective September 7, 2021. Your Colorado declaration now keeps its full effect regardless of pregnancy status.

A Medical Orders for Scope of Treatment (MOST) form, Colorado's equivalent of a POLST form, is a physician's order signed by a physician, nurse practitioner, or physician assistant. It is separate from your declaration and typically used alongside it, especially for people with serious illness, to translate treatment wishes into actionable medical orders.

Colorado's mechanism for documenting behavioral health treatment preferences in advance is the Behavioral Health Orders for Scope of Treatment provisions at Sections 15-18.7-201 to 207, a distinct instrument from your declaration.