Advance health care directive of a skilled nursing facility patient., the official text

An act to amend Section 4675 of the Probate Code, relating to advance health care directives.

LEGISLATIVE COUNSEL'S DIGEST

Existing law, the Health Care Decisions Law, provides for the creation, form, and revocation of advance health care directives, and authorizes an adult having capacity to give an individual health care instruction. Under existing law, the advance health care directive of a patient in a skilled nursing facility is not effective unless a patient advocate or ombudsman signs the advance directive as a witness and declares that they are serving as a witness pursuant to this requirement. Existing law authorizes a witness who is a patient advocate or ombudsman to rely on the representations of the administrators or staff of the skilled nursing facility, or of family members, as convincing evidence of the identity of the patient, as specified.
This bill would delete a patient advocate from the above-described witness duties, thus requiring that an ombudsman witness the advance health care directive of a patient in a skilled nursing facility.

The people of the State of California do enact as follows:

SECTION 1.
Section 4675 of the Probate Code is amended to read:
4675.
(a) If an individual is a patient in a skilled nursing facility when a written advance health care directive is executed, the advance directive is not effective unless an ombudsman, as may be designated by the California Department of Aging for this purpose pursuant to any other applicable provision of law, signs the advance directive as a witness, either as one of two witnesses or in addition to notarization. The ombudsman shall declare that the ombudsman is serving as a witness as required by this subdivision. It is the intent of this subdivision to recognize that some patients in skilled nursing facilities are insulated from a voluntary decisionmaking role, by virtue of the custodial nature of their care, so as to require special assurance that they are capable of willfully and voluntarily executing an advance directive.
(b) A witness who is an ombudsman may rely on the representations of the administrators or staff of the skilled nursing facility, or of family members, as convincing evidence of the identity of the patient if the ombudsman believes that the representations provide a reasonable basis for determining the identity of the patient.