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In most cases, your health care documents will be honored in other states.If you regularly spend time in more than one state, it's smart to consider whether a living will, advance directive, or health care power of attorney made in your home state will be valid in the second state, too. Usually, it will be.

Living will. A living will is a written, legal document that spells out medical treatments you would and would not want to be used to keep you alive, as well as your preferences for other medical decisions, such as pain management or organ donation. In determining your wishes, think about your values.

They don't take away your authority to make your own care and treatment decisions. You retain the right to override the decisions or your representative, change the terms of your living will or POA, or completely revoke an advance directive.

Three states had a living will only (with limited proxy) and lacked the durable power of attorney for health care (Pennsylvania, Louisiana, and Montana; 6%).

You can give a person complete authority to make all decisions, or limit them significantly to make only specific decisions.If you want specificity, it is better to do that in your living will, which the person with a durable power of attorney cannot override.

All 50 states and the District of Columbia have laws recognizing the use of advance directives (i.e., living wills, medical powers of attorney). Most states honor another state's advance directive. But more importantly, if your advance directive is registered, your family and doctors will have access to your wishes.

Even though they are not required to follow your wishes, most will do so.In an emergency, a physician's choices could override your living will for another reason; if proper care dictates you to be treated in a certain way or there is an ethical obligation, that could override your wishes.