Florida Living Will Requirements

Florida's Living Will is governed by its own statute, the Life-Prolonging Procedure Act of Florida (Sections 765.301-765.309, Part III of Chapter 765). This is a legally separate Act from the Florida Health Care Surrogate Act (Sections 765.201-765.205, Part II), which covers naming an agent. Each Act has its own short title and its own execution procedure.

Florida defines a living will as either a witnessed document in writing, executed under Section 765.302, or a witnessed oral statement expressing your instructions concerning life-prolonging procedures. The written path is the only one with a defined signing and witnessing procedure, so it is the practical, recommended route, but Florida law does recognize a properly witnessed oral declaration.

A Florida living will must be signed in the presence of two subscribing witnesses, at least one of whom is not the principal's spouse or a blood relative. Section 765.302 does not state an explicit adult-witness requirement for a living will, unlike Section 765.202's health care surrogate designation, which does require adult witnesses by name.

Section 765.302 allows 'any competent adult' to make a living will at any time. Capacity in this context is the inverse of the chapter's 'incapacity' or 'incompetent' definition at Section 765.101: the physical or mental ability to communicate a willful and knowing health care decision.

Terminal condition means a condition caused by injury, disease, or illness from which there is no reasonable medical probability of recovery and which, without treatment, can be expected to cause death.

Persistent vegetative state means a permanent and irreversible condition of unconsciousness marked by the absence of voluntary action or cognitive behavior and an inability to communicate or interact purposefully with the environment.

End-stage condition means an irreversible condition caused by injury, disease, or illness that has resulted in progressively severe and permanent deterioration, and for which treatment would be ineffective to a reasonable degree of medical probability.

Life-prolonging procedure means any medical procedure, treatment, or intervention, including artificially provided sustenance and hydration, that sustains, restores, or supplants a spontaneous vital function. It excludes medication or a procedure a physician deems necessary for comfort care or pain relief.

A competent principal may amend or revoke a living will at any time by any of four methods: a signed, dated writing; physically canceling or destroying it (personally or through another, in the principal's presence and at the principal's direction); an oral expression of intent to amend or revoke; or executing a subsequent advance directive materially different from the earlier one. Revocation is effective once communicated to the surrogate, physician, or facility.

Section 765.113 does not make a Florida living will ineffective during pregnancy. It restricts what a surrogate or proxy may consent to on the principal's behalf: a surrogate or proxy may not consent to withholding or withdrawing life-prolonging procedures from a pregnant patient before viability, unless the principal expressly authorized that in writing or a court approved it under the Florida Probate Rules.

The Florida Health Care Surrogate Act (Sections 765.201-765.205) is a separate statute from the Living Will, covering the designation of an agent with general health care decision-making authority. It is not part of this living-will document. For full agent-designation guidance, including its own two-witness execution procedure, see Florida Healthcare Power of Attorney.

Florida's living will may, but need not, follow the suggested statutory form at Section 765.303. Any living will meeting Section 765.302's execution requirements is valid whether or not it uses this exact form.

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

Federal HIPAA regulations govern how a designated surrogate or the person named in your living will's optional surrogate field can be authorized to access your protected health information. This authorization supports whoever you have named; it does not change or expand your own life-prolonging-procedure instructions.

Artificial nutrition and hydration is included within the single 'life-prolonging procedure' definition at Section 765.101(12); Florida's suggested form does not require it to be initialed as its own separate election. Whichever of the three trigger conditions you initial governs artificial nutrition and hydration along with every other life-prolonging measure.

Florida law requires patients, or their surrogate if the patient is incapacitated, to be given information about pain management and palliative care options when discussing diagnosis, treatment, and prognosis with their physician. Comfort care and pain relief continue regardless of the life-sustaining treatment choices made in a living will.

Florida's Anatomical Gift Act (Part V of Chapter 765, Sections 765.510-765.547) lets you authorize organ and tissue donation separately from your living will. Florida's suggested living will form does not include an organ-donation field of its own; donation is instead handled through the separate Anatomical Gift Act mechanisms, including the state's Joshua Abbott Organ and Tissue Registry.

An advance directive executed in another state, in compliance with that state's law or Florida's, is validly executed for purposes of Florida's Health Care Advance Directives chapter.

A health care facility, provider, or surrogate acting in good faith compliance with this chapter is immune from criminal prosecution and civil liability, and is not deemed to have engaged in unprofessional conduct, for carrying out a health care decision under the statute.

A health care provider or facility unwilling to carry out a patient's living will on moral or ethical grounds must, within 7 days, either transfer the patient to a provider or facility that will comply, or carry out the patient's wishes.

Before life-prolonging procedures may be withheld or withdrawn under a living will, the patient's primary physician and at least one other consulting physician must separately examine the patient and document their findings, confirming a terminal condition, an end-stage condition, or a persistent vegetative state, in the patient's medical record.