Indiana Living Will Requirements

Indiana Code 16-36-4-10 sets out the state's own statutory living will declaration form, part of the Living Wills and Life Prolonging Procedures Act. Indiana is a separate document state: this living will is its own instrument, distinct from the health care representative appointment (Indiana Code 16-36-1-7) and from the newer optional combined Advance Directive (Indiana Code 16-36-7) created in 2021. The term Advance Directive refers to that separate, optional newer document, not this living will itself, and the two should not be used interchangeably.

Indiana Code 16-36-4-5 defines terminal condition as a condition caused by injury, disease, or illness from which, to a reasonable degree of medical certainty, there can be no recovery and death will occur within a short period of time without life prolonging procedures. This is the single trigger condition Indiana's living will statute recognizes.

Indiana Code 16-36-4-1 defines life prolonging procedure as any medical procedure, treatment, or intervention that uses mechanical or other artificial means to sustain, restore, or supplant a vital function, or serves to prolong the dying process. The definition itself excludes any medical procedure or medication necessary to provide comfort care or to alleviate pain, so comfort care is never something you need to elect separately.

A living will only becomes operative once you are a qualified patient, defined at Indiana Code 16-36-4-4 as a patient certified as qualified under Section 13. Certification under Section 13 requires the attending physician to certify in writing both that you have a terminal condition and that you executed a valid living will or life prolonging procedures declaration while of sound mind.

Indiana requires a separate, specifically initialed choice about artificial nutrition and hydration within the statutory living will form itself: receive it even if futile or excessively burdensome, refuse it under those circumstances, or leave the decision to a health care representative or attorney in fact. This is a stand-alone election, not folded into the general treatment instruction.

The definition of life prolonging procedure at Indiana Code 16-36-4-1 excludes medical procedures and medication necessary to provide comfort care or to alleviate pain. Comfort care and pain relief remain available regardless of your life prolonging procedure choice, because they are excluded from the definition of what can be withheld in the first place.

If you use witnesses instead of a notary, Indiana requires two competent adult witnesses. A witness may not be the person who signed the declaration on your behalf and at your direction, your parent, spouse, or child, a person entitled to any part of your estate, or a person directly financially responsible for your medical care. Indiana's list does not disqualify your own health care provider or a facility employee.

You may revoke your Indiana living will or life prolonging procedures declaration at any time by a signed, dated writing, by physically canceling or destroying it yourself or through another person in your presence and at your direction, or by an oral expression of intent to revoke. Revocation takes effect once it is communicated to your attending physician, and no one is liable for failing to act on a revocation they did not actually know about.

A living will declaration of a person diagnosed as pregnant by the attending physician has no effect during the person's pregnancy under Indiana Code 16-36-4-8. This is stated as an unconditional rule and applies to the living will, the declaration asking that treatment be withheld or withdrawn, not to the opposite life prolonging procedures declaration.

Indiana Code 16-36-4-7 gives a competent person the right to consent to or refuse medical treatment, including life prolonging procedures, and states that no health care provider is required to provide treatment a patient has refused, and that no civil or criminal liability attaches to a provider for not providing treatment that was validly refused.

Federal HIPAA regulations (45 CFR Section 164.508) govern how a health care representative or other authorized person can be given access to your protected health information in connection with carrying out your treatment wishes.

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

Indiana's Revised Uniform Anatomical Gift Act (Indiana Code 29-2-16.1) lets you state organ and tissue donation wishes. Indiana Code 16-36-7-2 itself, the definition section for the state's newer combined Advance Directive, expressly cross-references an anatomical gift made under Indiana Code 29-2-16.1 as one of the things such a directive can include.

Indiana Code 16-36-1.7, the Psychiatric Advance Directives chapter, is a separate, optional instrument that lets you state treatment preferences specifically for future periods of incapacity due to mental illness. It is a genuinely distinct chapter from this living will (Indiana Code 16-36-4) and is not part of it; a psychiatric advance directive addresses mental health treatment specifically, while this living will addresses terminal physical conditions and life prolonging procedures.

Indiana Code 16-36-1-7 lets you separately appoint a health care representative, the person who decides for you on anything your living will does not cover. That is a different function from the living will declaration, which states your own treatment wishes directly and names no one. The health care representative appointment has different execution requirements: while the living will requires two witnesses who are not close relatives (or a notary), the health care representative appointment requires two witnesses, only one of whom must be unrelated. For full guidance on naming a representative, see Indiana Healthcare Power of Attorney.

Signing your Indiana living will before a notary public is not a backup option for people who cannot find witnesses. Indiana Code 16-36-4-8 makes notarization and two witness signing two independently sufficient, co-equal ways to execute a valid declaration.

Indiana is one of the few states whose statute offers a second, opposite declaration alongside the living will. A life prolonging procedures will declaration lets you request that life prolonging procedures, including nutrition, hydration, medication, and other medical procedures, be used and continued to extend your life if you develop a terminal condition. It uses its own statutory form at Indiana Code 16-36-4-11 and the same execution rule, sound mind, 18 or older, dated, signed, and witnessed by two adults or a notary, as the living will declaration.

Since July 1, 2021, Indiana has also allowed a separate, optional document called an Advance Directive (Indiana Code 16-36-7, created by Senate Enrolled Act 204) that can combine a health care representative designation, treatment preferences, and health information authorization into one instrument. This does not replace the stand-alone living will. Indiana Code 16-36-7-1 expressly states this newer chapter does not establish the only legal means to state treatment wishes or name a decision-maker, and a validly executed Indiana Code 16-36-4 living will remains fully effective on its own.