August 15, 2013

Middle-aged Americans are constantly reminded that they need to create estate plans in order to protect their family from the unexpected. As a recent article explains, however, it is just as important for your adult children to create an estate plan as well, even if it’s a simple one.

Once your child turns 18, you lose any authority you had to view his or her medical records or make decisions about his or her medical treatment. The only way to avoid this is to encourage your child to participate in some simple estate planning maneuvers.

This planning is especially important as your child heads off to college. If your child suffers a major accident and is left unable to communicate, you would have to go through the daunting process of petitioning a court to appoint you the legal guardian of your child before you could make any medical decisions for him or her.

For less serious medical incidents, the Health Information Portability and Accountability Act (“HIPAA”) makes it difficult, or sometimes impossible, for a parent to receive critical medical information, including whether or not your child was admitted to a hospital, and to which one. If you and your child wish to avoid this, ask your adult child to complete a health care proxy and HIPAA release, which allows you to receive medical information concerning your child and to make medical decisions should he or she become incapacitated.