Fla. Stat. ch. 765 · Florida
Florida: how to sign your advance directive
Florida puts two different instruments in one chapter and gives each its own short title. The health care surrogate designation is the Florida Health Care Surrogate Act, §§765.202–765.205. The living will is the Life-Prolonging Procedure Act of Florida, §§765.302–765.309.
Why WearableDocs
In Florida, the directive has to be found
It does not wait on delivery to a clinician to operate — but a document no one can produce when asked for is a document that fails in practice. WearableDocs puts the signed directive on a card you carry and a page that opens in seconds, instead of a phone call to whoever might know which drawer.
You answer a few questions — your name, your state, and what you refuse — and WearableDocs builds the directive. Print it, sign it, upload it. Changing your answers later is part of the plan, so nothing is locked in.
What Florida asks
What you need to sign in Florida
- Instruments
- Two, in one chapter — a health care surrogate designation (Florida Health Care Surrogate Act, §§765.202–765.205) · a living will (Life-Prolonging Procedure Act of Florida, §§765.302–765.309)
- Form
- Illustrative — "may, but need not be, in the following form" (§765.203); "A living will may, BUT NEED NOT, be in the following form" (§765.303(1))
- Execution
- Two witnesses, no notary. Signed by the principal in the presence of two subscribing adult witnesses; one of the two must be neither your spouse nor a blood relative (§765.202(1), §765.302(1)). A principal physically unable to sign may direct a witness to subscribe the signature
- May not witness
- The person designated as surrogate may not witness the designation (§765.202(2)). At least one witness must be neither the principal's spouse nor a blood relative
- May not be your agent
- None. The chapter disqualifies no one from serving as surrogate. §765.113 limits what a surrogate may consent to without express written delegation or court approval — abortion, sterilization, electroshock therapy, psychosurgery, unapproved experimental treatment, voluntary mental-health admission — but that is a limit on authority, not on eligibility
- Copy rule
- None. No copy-equivalence provision. The copy duties run the other way: an "exact copy" of the surrogate designation must be provided to the surrogate (§765.202(1)), and a physician notified of a living will must promptly make it or a copy part of the medical records (§765.302(2))
- Delivery
- No delivery precondition. The notification duty is the principal's own: "It is the responsibility of the principal to provide for notification to her or his primary physician that the living will has been made" (§765.302(2)). A notified physician must file it. The surrogate must be given an exact copy (§765.202(1))
- Who decides
- One physician. The primary or attending physician evaluates capacity and enters the finding in the record; "If the evaluating physician has a question as to whether the principal lacks capacity, another physician shall also evaluate" (§765.204(2)). Separately, withholding life-prolonging procedures requires a condition finding by two examining physicians (§765.306) — that is a finding about the condition, not the trigger
- Trigger overridable
- Yes. The principal may stipulate that the surrogate's authority is exercisable immediately, without a determination of incapacity (§765.101(21), §765.202(6))
- Registry
- None for advance directives. The registry ch. 765 creates is the organ and tissue donor registry — the "Joshua Abbott Organ and Tissue Registry" (§765.5155). It holds anatomical gifts, not directives
- Age
- 18 — a "competent adult" (§765.101(18))
- Reciprocity
- Yes. "An advance directive executed in another state in compliance with the law of that state or of this state is validly executed for the purposes of this chapter." (§765.112)
- Pregnancy
- Yes. A surrogate or proxy may not consent to withholding or withdrawing life-prolonging procedures from a pregnant patient prior to viability — unless the principal expressly delegates that authority in writing or a court approves (§765.113(2))
- Revocation
- Divorce or annulment revokes the former spouse's designation as surrogate, "unless otherwise provided in the advance directive or in an order of dissolution or annulment of marriage" (§765.104(2)). It is defeasible, not automatic in every case
- Oral instructions
- Split. A living will may be oral — §765.101(13)(b) recognizes "a witnessed oral statement". A surrogate designation may not: §765.202(1) requires a written document signed in the presence of two subscribing adult witnesses
- Uninitialled box
- The surrogate timing box defaults to incapacity. The statutory form makes the surrogate's authority effective when the primary physician determines the principal is unable to make health care decisions, "UNLESS I INITIAL EITHER OR BOTH OF THE FOLLOWING BOXES" — immediate health information, or immediate decision-making (§765.203)
- Provider may not require
- §765.110(2) — a provider or facility may not require a patient to execute an advance directive, or to execute a new one on the facility's or provider's forms. §765.110(3) — doing so as a condition of treatment or admission brings professional discipline and a fine of up to $1,000 per incident. §765.108 — a person may not be required to make an advance directive as a condition of being insured for, or receiving, health care services
- Carried device
- Nothing for the directive. See below
- Citation
- Fla. Stat. ch. 765
Read from the enacted statute, 2026-09-18.
The instrument
What Florida actually recognizes
They are not versions of each other. A surrogate designation names a person and can carry instructions; a living will states instructions and may name a surrogate. The statute collects both — and an anatomical gift made under part V — under the umbrella phrase advance directive, defined as "a witnessed written document or oral statement" (§765.101(1)).
Two features of the split are easy to miss, and both are on this page. A living will may be oral; a surrogate designation may not. And the surrogate's authority defaults to incapacity — the statutory form makes it effective "when my primary physician determines that I am unable to make my own health care decisions" unless the principal initials a box to start it earlier (§765.203).
The chapter also forbids the thing patients are most often asked to do. A provider or facility "may not require a patient to execute an advance directive or to execute a new advance directive using the facility's or provider's forms," and the patient's directives "shall travel with the patient as part of the patient's medical record" (§765.110(2)).
What the popular guides get wrong
Corrections for Florida
"Sign it in front of a notary." There is no notary anywhere in ch. 765. Both instruments are witnessed, not acknowledged: two subscribing adult witnesses for the surrogate designation (§765.202(1)) and two for the living will (§765.302(1)). A Floridian who had their directive notarised instead of witnessed has an instrument the chapter does not describe.
"Two doctors must agree." The capacity determination is one physician — the primary or attending physician evaluates and enters the finding — and a second physician is brought in only "if the evaluating physician has a question as to whether the principal lacks capacity" (§765.204(2)). Where two physicians genuinely are required is the separate condition finding that §765.306 requires before life-prolonging procedures are withheld — a finding about the terminal condition, end-stage condition or persistent vegetative state, not about whether the surrogate may act.
"Register it with the Florida registry." There is no advance-directive registry in ch. 765. The registry the chapter creates is the organ and tissue donor registry, §765.5155 — designated the "Joshua Abbott Organ and Tissue Registry." A directive filed there has been filed in the wrong registry.
"A Florida advance directive can be oral." It can, for one of the two instruments. §765.101(13)(b) recognizes a witnessed oral statement as a living will. A surrogate designation cannot be oral: §765.202(1) requires a written document signed in the presence of two subscribing adult witnesses. Florida divides the two instruments on exactly this point, and a page that treats "oral advance directive" as covering both is wrong about the one that names a person.
Carried on you
What a WearableDocs card does in Florida
WearableDocs is how your Florida advance directive gets found. There is no bracelet, necklace, card or device provision attached to either instrument, and no copy-equivalence rule for either.
What Florida has instead is a duty of movement placed on the signer. §765.302(2) makes it the principal's responsibility to notify the primary physician that the living will exists, and a physician who has been notified must promptly make it or a copy part of the medical record — the statute's own answer to the question of how the document reaches the person who will need it. A surrogate designation carries an analogous duty: an exact copy must be provided to the surrogate (§765.202(1)).
Florida does provide for a do-not-resuscitate order, and it is the surrogate who gives the written consent for one — "a physician's order not to resuscitate" (§765.205(1)(c)). That consent travels with the patient's medical record, not on the patient's wrist: ch. 765 contains no device provision for the DNR order either.
And once, plainly: an advance directive does not bind EMS on CPR. The DNR order is a separate instrument, and the card's job in Florida is findability — getting the directive in front of the physician who has to act on it.