It’s June and that means senior high school graduations. It also means many new adults in your midst. As your child steps into adulthood, you might not recognize that as a parent you will end up struggling to help your child with banking or gain access to help with their healthcare (while you can always be repaying correctly!).
Because your kids are a legal adult, HIPAA laws can prevent parents from making medical decisions on the child’s behalf. For that reason, parents of graduating seniors are urged to arrange ICE cards, an Advanced Healthcare Directive plus a HIPAA Authorization to be consulted and actively linked to the youngster’s care should their child become incapacitated or seriously injured within an accident, or simply need help navigating a healthcare claim while using the insurer.
Under current HIPAA laws, parents could be barred from making necessary medical and life-saving decisions on his or her child’s behalf without such documentation set up. Parents may further are unable to obtain necessary medical records with no Advanced Healthcare Directive.
Most parents assume they can make medical decisions on their own child’s behalf until they are legally married, that is hardly true. The law can prevent parents from getting involved with the care of a child 18 or older without explicit permission through legal documentation.
Parents of graduating seniors must complete the following documents which let them have permission to intervene medically to make life-saving decisions on their own child’s behalf:
1. ICE Card
ICE stands for In Case Of Emergency along with a card reflecting such needs to be saved in the newborn’s wallet listing names of most approved emergency contacts, medical health insurance information, and all sorts of known allergies. Tech-savvy students could also complete ICE information employing an iPhone app from LegalZoom.
2. Advanced Healthcare Directive
Typically drafted by a legal professional, an Advance Healthcare Directive allows an adult to appoint someone they trust (the parent) to get their healthcare agent if and when they end up in a coma or become otherwise incapacitated in the serious accident. It also specifies the kind of long-term care or life keep the child would want should they become incapacitated or left in a very permanent vegetative state.
3. HIPAA Authorization
Also typically drafted by a lawyer, a HIPAA Authorization allows the new adult to present permission to someone (the parent) to gain access to their healthcare information including medical records, talk to doctors, and insurance providers.
Without such directives in place, parents may be helpless spectators to their youngster’s care as long as they belong to a coma or become not able to speak for their reasons. Fortunately, this example is entirely avoidable.
And keep in mind, make certain a new adult knows that many of these documents will be changed as his (along with your) life changes… while he and those he loves to move, marry, have children, divorce, die, and so forth.
