Oregon Living Will Requirements
Oregon asks a question most states never do: not just whether you want life-sustaining treatment, but which of four levels of it, applied separately across three distinct medical scenarios, one of which specifically addresses an advanced, worsening illness that leaves you unable to communicate, swallow safely, care for yourself, or recognize your family, language written for exactly the kind of decline dementia causes, even though the statute itself never uses that word.
Introduction
Oregon asks a question most states never do: not just whether you want life-sustaining treatment, but which of four levels of it, applied separately across three distinct medical scenarios, one of which specifically addresses an advanced, worsening illness that leaves you unable to communicate, swallow safely, care for yourself, or recognize your family, language written for exactly the kind of decline dementia causes, even though the statute itself never uses that word. This document, commonly called a living will, is your written statement of the medical care you want or want withheld once you can no longer speak for yourself. Oregon folds it together with the power to name a decision-maker: ORS 127.505 to 127.660, the Oregon Health Care Decisions Act, defines a single instrument, the Advance Directive, built from both pieces, and the statute has avoided the phrase 'power of attorney' entirely since a 2018 rewrite. This guide walks through the treatment-instructions half of that directive: the three-scenario menu, how Oregon wants it executed, and the long-term care facility rule that adds a witness requirement most people miss. Naming who carries out decisions you haven't spelled out is covered separately on the Oregon Healthcare Power of Attorney page.
Key Things to Know
- 1
Oregon's statutory instructions form doesn't stop at terminal illness and unconsciousness. It adds a third scenario, Advanced Progressive Illness, for a worsening, ultimately fatal condition where you can no longer communicate, swallow safely, care for yourself, or recognize people close to you, and gives you four levels of treatment to choose from under each of the three scenarios, not a single yes-or-no choice.
- 2
A living will is not a last will and testament. One states your medical treatment wishes while you're alive but unable to speak for yourself; the other decides who gets your property once you've died. Most people planning end-of-life care eventually want both.
- 3
Oregon does not have a stand-alone living-will statute. ORS 127.505 to 127.660 defines a single Advance Directive containing both your treatment instructions and your representative appointment, and by definition requires both pieces in the same document.
- 4
You can put your own treatment instructions into effect before two witnesses or before a notary public, not both. If you're a long-term care facility resident using the two-witness route, one witness must be someone the facility designates and the Department of Human Services qualifies by rule; choosing notarization instead skips that extra step entirely.
- 5
For the Terminal Condition scenario specifically, Oregon sets a concrete timeframe: your providers must believe death will occur within six months regardless of treatment, a more specific standard than the vague 'relatively short time' language many states use.
- 6
Nothing in the Oregon Health Care Decisions Act changes, suspends, or voids your directive because you are pregnant.
- 7
Your own written wishes about withholding or withdrawing life-sustaining treatment control even before anyone else could weigh in, and you can take those wishes back the moment you're able to communicate that change, capable or not. Taking back any other part of your directive does require you to be capable.
- 8
Oregon does not run a statewide registry for Advance Directives the way some states do. Its only chapter-127 registry covers POLST, a different clinician-signed order, not your own directive; keep your signed original and give copies to your representative and providers directly.
Key decisions before you file
Before you file a Living Will in Oregon, a few decisions shape the document: which option to choose and what each one means. The Living Will guide walks through them.
Open the Living Will guideCustomize your Living Will Template with DocDraft
Once your Living Will is ready, you can check whether it needs to be notarized in Oregon in about a minute, and notarize it online through DocDraft if it does.
Oregon Requirements for Living Will
Oregon does not have a legally separate living-will statute. ORS 127.505 to 127.660, cited by ORS 127.660 as the Oregon Health Care Decisions Act, create one combined instrument, the Advance Directive, defined at ORS 127.505(2)(a) as a document that contains BOTH a form appointing a health care representative AND instructions to the health care representative, in the same document.
Under ORS 127.505 and 127.507, you must be a capable adult to execute a valid Advance Directive. An adult is defined as someone 18 or older, or an emancipated or married minor, and a capable person is one who is not incapable of making health care decisions.
Oregon narrowed its witness disqualification list in a 2018 reform, and the current list is short: a witness may not be your attending physician or attending health care provider, or your health care representative or alternate. Oregon does NOT exclude relatives by blood, marriage, or adoption, and does NOT exclude an owner, operator, or employee of the facility where you receive care. A long-term care facility resident signing with witnesses faces one additional requirement, covered in its own row below.
Under ORS 127.520, the following individuals may not serve as your representative unless related to you by blood, marriage, or adoption: your attending physician or attending health care provider (or an employee of either), and an owner, operator, or employee of a health care facility where you are a patient (unless appointed before your admission). Naming and structuring the representative appointment itself is the agent-designation half of this combined directive; see Oregon Healthcare Power of Attorney for full guidance on that half.
ORS 127.529 organizes your instructions around three scenarios: Terminal Condition (death expected within six months regardless of treatment), Advanced Progressive Illness (a worsening, fatal illness with specific communicate, swallow, self-care, and family-recognition deficits), and Permanently Unconscious, each offering four options ranging from all available treatment to comfort care only.
Under ORS 127.545, revocation rules depend on the type of decision involved. A decision to withhold or withdraw life-sustaining procedures or artificial nutrition and hydration can be revoked at any time and in any manner by which you are able to communicate that intent, without needing to otherwise be legally capable. Revoking anything else in your directive requires you to be a capable principal, though it too may happen at any time and in any manner. Revocation is effective once communicated to your attending physician, provider, or representative.
Oregon's current full statutory form is ORS 127.529 (representative appointment plus treatment instructions); a shorter representative-appointment-only form with no instructions exists separately at ORS 127.527. Using either statutory form in substantially the form provided satisfies Oregon law; a self-drafted document must contain substantially similar provisions.
Federal HIPAA regulations govern how your health care representative can be authorized to access your protected health information once the representative-appointment portion of your combined directive is in effect.
Oregon does not have a stand-alone, independently electable pain-management statute; the comfort-care commitment, being kept comfortable and allowed to die naturally, is written directly into the 'decline life-sustaining treatment' option within each of the three treatment-instruction scenarios on the ORS 127.529 form itself, not a separate provision you elect on its own.
Your Advance Directive may express your wishes regarding organ and tissue donation under Oregon's Revised Uniform Anatomical Gift Act (ORS 97.951 to 97.982).
ORS 127.700 to 127.737 creates a wholly separate instrument, a Declaration for Mental Health Treatment, with its own execution requirements. ORS 127.545(6)(b) confirms the two are treated as distinct: if your Advance Directive conflicts with a mental health treatment declaration, the mental health declaration governs. Psychiatric medication and hospitalization preferences belong on that separate declaration, not on this page's Advance Directive.
Oregon's own statutory Advance Directive form tells the reader directly that it 'is not the same as' POLST (Physician Orders for Life-Sustaining Treatment, ORS 127.663 to 127.684), a separate order a clinician signs, not you, and tracked in its own statewide registry. Your Advance Directive states your wishes in your own words; a POLST translates a seriously ill patient's wishes into actionable medical orders. Most people executing an Advance Directive do not yet need a POLST.
Under ORS 127.515(6), an Advance Directive is considered validly executed in Oregon if it was created by a resident of another state in compliance with that state's law, the law of the place where it was signed, or Oregon's own law.
A health care representative, or someone reasonably believed to be one, acting in good faith is not subject to criminal prosecution, civil liability, or professional discipline for that action. A health care provider relying in good faith on a valid Advance Directive or a representative's decision is likewise protected, unless the provider fails a duty the Act imposes, acts without required medical confirmation, knows the Act's requirements were not met, or acts after being notified of a revocation, dispute, or disqualification.
Federal law requires Medicare- and Medicaid-participating hospitals, nursing homes, and other facilities to inform patients in writing of their right under Oregon law to make an advance directive, including stating their own treatment wishes.
Under ORS 127.625, a health care provider may decline to participate in withdrawing or withholding life-sustaining treatment. If a provider is unwilling to carry out your directive, they must promptly notify your representative and make a reasonable effort to transfer your care to another provider rather than simply disregarding your wishes.
The statutory form (ORS 127.529) includes a scenario for 'Advanced Progressive Illness,' covering an advanced-stage, worsening, ultimately fatal illness in which you are permanently unable to communicate, swallow food and water safely, care for yourself, or recognize family and other people, closely describing what many people colloquially call a dementia directive, with the same four-option instruction menu as the form's other two scenarios.
Under ORS 127.515(2), an Advance Directive must be signed and EITHER witnessed by two adults OR notarized. These are two separate and equally valid ways to execute the document; a notarized directive does not require witnesses.
If you are a patient in a long-term care facility when you execute your Advance Directive using the two-witness method, one of your two witnesses must be an individual designated by the facility and qualified as specified by the Oregon Department of Human Services by rule. This requirement applies only to the two-witness path; choosing notarization instead satisfies Oregon law without a facility-designated witness.
Does your Living Will need to be notarized in Oregon?
Whether a Living Will needs to be notarized depends on your state. Upload yours, pick your state, and get the current rule with the official source behind it, free and with no account. If yours does need a notary, online notarization is part of your DocDraft plan.
Check my Living WillFrequently Asked Questions
In Oregon, a living will is the treatment-instructions half of the Advance Directive, the single document ORS 127.505 to 127.660 uses for end-of-life medical decisions. Its statutory form, revised in 2021, organizes your wishes around three scenarios, terminal condition, advanced progressive illness, and permanent unconsciousness, and lets you pick from four treatment options under each one. There is no separate Oregon statute called a 'living will'; the term describes this part of the combined Advance Directive, not a stand-alone filing.
In most states these are two separate documents; in Oregon they are two halves of one Advance Directive (ORS 127.505 to 127.660), and the statute never even uses the phrase 'power of attorney.' This living-will half is where you state your own treatment wishes directly, what care you want or don't want, under whichever of the three named medical scenarios applies. The other half, naming someone to decide for you in situations your own instructions don't cover, is a distinct function covered on Oregon Healthcare Power of Attorney. Oregon lets you complete that decision-maker half alone using a stand-alone form (ORS 127.527), but there is no way to complete only the treatment-wishes half without it living inside this same combined document.
They control entirely different things at entirely different times. A living will, part of your Oregon Advance Directive, states your medical treatment wishes while you're alive but unable to communicate. A last will and testament decides who inherits your property, and it only takes effect after you die. Neither one substitutes for the other. Most people completing an Advance Directive for end-of-life planning also want a separate Oregon Last Will and Testament for their estate.
Not as its own isolated line, but Oregon's form gives it more room than most. Under each of the three scenarios on the ORS 127.529 form, one of the four options lets you keep artificial feeding and hydration with feeding tubes and IV fluids specifically while declining other life-sustaining treatments like dialysis or a breathing machine. So you can choose that middle path without a separate initialed election, something a strictly binary form wouldn't allow.
It's Oregon's closest equivalent, though the word 'dementia' never appears in the statute. The ORS 127.529 form's Advanced Progressive Illness scenario covers an illness that is advanced, will keep getting worse, and is expected to cause death, where you can no longer communicate, swallow food and water safely, care for yourself, or recognize family and other people, exactly the kind of decline dementia produces. You get the same four treatment options for this scenario as for terminal condition and permanent unconsciousness.
No. Oregon's Health Care Decisions Act (ORS 127.505 to 127.660 and 127.995) does not contain any provision that mentions pregnancy. Your directive keeps its full legal effect regardless of pregnancy, unlike some other states that do carve this out.
No, and Oregon doesn't even offer that option for this document. Unlike some states with a voluntary state registry for advance directives, Oregon's only chapter-127 registry (ORS 127.663 to 127.684) covers POLST orders, a different, clinician-signed document. Your Advance Directive is valid once properly signed and witnessed or notarized; give copies directly to your representative and health care providers instead.
Yes. ORS 127.515(6) treats a directive executed by someone who lived in another state at the time, done in compliance with that state's law, the law of the place they signed it, or Oregon's own law, as validly executed here.