Virginia Advance Directives
Health care providers may be asked to help in several ways:
Facilitation
Virginia law restricts who can help a person, one-on-one to fill out their AD. Lawyers, health care providers, and qualified advance directive facilitators (QADFs) certified by a Virginia Department of Health-approved program may do so.
For more information about helping this directly, see our Facilitation page.
Advice
Many people may simply have some questions for their health care providers. They might have questions about what certain types of treatment are or they might seek out their providers’ perspectives.
ADs are meant to be the person’s document, so providers should avoid being directive or telling someone what to put in their AD.
Records
Some people may ask their providers for copies of their records to help make sure that their AD contains up-to-date and accurate information.
Attestation
One provision of an AD, if selected by the person, requires review by a physician or licensed clinical psychologist. More information on the provision is here. For now, it is important to note that the physician or psychologist is not asked to review the whole AD, just the one provision at issue.