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Start the free role checkWhat advance directives are
Advance directives are documents you sign while you have capacity that let trusted people make decisions for you — financial and medical — if illness or injury later prevents you from deciding yourself. Without them, your family may have to ask an Arizona court to appoint a guardian or conservator, which takes time and expense.
The core Arizona documents
Power of attorney for finances
Authorizes an agent to handle your finances and property, and can continue through your incapacity. The agent may exercise your powers to revoke, amend or distribute a trust only to the extent the terms of the trust expressly authorize it or, where the terms do not prohibit it, the power of attorney expressly does (A.R.S. § 14-10602) — so who you name, and what you grant, matters.
Health care power of attorney (A.R.S. § 36-3231)
Names an agent to make health care decisions for you when you cannot make them yourself; where you cannot decide, the provider follows your health care directive and consults your agent as your surrogate. Without an agent, the statute names who decides, in its order of priority — the spouse, a majority of the adult children, a parent, a domestic partner, a sibling, a close friend (A.R.S. § 36-3231).
Your treatment wishes: the living will (A.R.S. § 36-3262)
A living will states your wishes on life-sustaining treatment — any writing that meets the statute's requirements may create one, with or without a health care power of attorney, and the statute prints a sample offered as a sample only (A.R.S. § 36-3262). Where you also have a health care agent, the agent makes decisions consistent with your known desires.
Guardian nomination & HIPAA authorization
If a guardianship or conservatorship ever becomes necessary, an Arizona court weighs the person you nominated; a HIPAA authorization lets named people receive your medical information. Often added to round out the set.
Why you need these even with a Trust
A revocable living Trust handles the assets inside it, but it does not make medical decisions, and it doesn't cover assets you never transferred in. Advance directives fill those gaps — and together with a will and a Trust, they keep decisions in the hands of people you chose, not a court.
Putting the set together in Arizona
Which directives you need, and how they're worded, depends on your situation, your family, and your wishes. This page is general information, not legal advice. A free role check can show you where you stand, and a Arizona attorney can prepare directives that fit you.
General information about Arizona law, not legal advice.
Frequently asked questions
- What is a health care power of attorney in Arizona?
- A writing by which a principal names an agent to make health care decisions; where the patient cannot decide, the provider follows a health care directive and consults the agent as the patient's surrogate (A.R.S. § 36-3231). A living will, which any writing meeting the article's requirements may create, states the person's wishes on life-sustaining treatment, with or without a health care power of attorney (§ 36-3262).
- Who decides for an Arizona patient who signed nothing?
- A surrogate in the order A.R.S. § 36-3231 sets — the spouse unless legally separated, a majority of the reasonably available adult children, a parent, an unmarried patient's domestic partner, a sibling, then a close friend — following the patient's known wishes; where none can be located, the attending physician may decide after consulting an institutional ethics committee or a concurring second physician.
General information about Arizona law, not legal advice.