K.S.A. §58-625 et seq. · §65-28,101 et seq. · Kansas
Kansas: how to sign your advance directive
Kansas has two instruments under two statutes in two different chapters of the code, and they are not interchangeable. The durable power of attorney for health care decisions sits in ch. 58 — Personal and Real Property — at §58-625 through §58-632. The declaration sits in ch. 65 — Public Health — at §65-28,101 et seq., the natural death act.
Why WearableDocs
In Kansas, 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 Kansas asks
What you need to sign in Kansas
- Instruments
- Two, in two chapters — a durable power of attorney for health care decisions (§58-625 to §58-632) · a declaration (§65-28,101 et seq.)
- Form
- Illustrative in both, on the statutes' own word — the durable power of attorney "shall be in substantially the following form" (§58-632); the declaration "shall be substantially in the following form, but in addition may include other specific directions" (§65-28,103(c))
- Execution
- Two witnesses OR a notary in both. Power of attorney: dated and signed in the presence of two witnesses at least 18 years of age, or acknowledged before a notary public (§58-629(e)). Declaration: in writing, signed, dated, and signed in the presence of two or more witnesses at least 18 years of age, or acknowledged before a notary public (§65-28,103(a))
- May not witness
- The two lists are not the same. Power of attorney (§58-629(e)(1)): the agent; relatives by blood, marriage or adoption; anyone entitled to any portion of the estate under intestate succession or under any will or codicil; anyone directly financially responsible for the principal's health care. Declaration (§65-28,103(a)(4)(A)): whoever signed the declaration on the declarant's behalf; relatives by blood or marriage; estate beneficiaries; the financially responsible — "adoption" is absent from this list, and so is "the agent"
- May not be your agent
- The treating health care provider, an employee of one, or an employee, owner, director or officer of a hospital, psychiatric facility, hospice, nursing home or similar institution — unless related to the principal by blood, marriage or adoption, or unless the principal and the agent are members of the same community of persons bound by vows to a religious life who conduct or assist in religious services (§58-629(d))
- Copy rule
- None. No copy-equivalence provision appears in the captured sections of either statute
- Delivery
- No delivery precondition for the power of attorney — §58-626 is captured and clean. The declaration's own operative section is not captured, so this row claims nothing about the declaration; §65-28,103(b) "It shall be the responsibility of declarant to provide for notification to the declarant's attending physician of the existence of the declaration" is a notification duty, and a physician so notified must file it
- Who decides
- Different, per instrument. Power of attorney: one attending physician — the agent's powers "shall not be effective until the occurrence of the principal's impairment as determined by the principal's attending physician … unless the durable power of attorney for health care decisions specifically provides otherwise" (§58-629(b)). Declaration: two physicians who have personally examined the patient, one of them the attending physician, certifying in writing that the patient is in a terminal condition (§65-28,102(e); §65-28,103(c))
- Trigger overridable
- Power of attorney: yes. §58-629(b) applies the attending physician's impairment determination "unless the durable power of attorney for health care decisions specifically provides otherwise." The declaration's trigger is not overridable in the captured text — §65-28,102(e) requires the two-physician certification for the patient to be a qualified patient at all
- Registry
- None found in either statute
- Age
- Adult — §65-28,103(a) opens the declaration to "any adult person." No departure from 18 recorded
- Pregnancy
- Yes, and it is a voiding rule. "The declaration of a qualified patient diagnosed as pregnant by the attending physician shall have no effect during the course of the qualified patient's pregnancy." (§65-28,103(a)). No equivalent provision appears in the power of attorney statute
- Revocation
- Declaration: by destruction or defacement indicating intent to cancel; by a written revocation signed and dated by the declarant or at the declarant's direction; or by a verbal expression of intent in the presence of a witness 18 or older who signs and dates a confirming writing — and a verbal revocation "shall become effective upon receipt by the attending physician of the above mentioned writing" (§65-28,104(a)). Power of attorney: a voluntary revocation does not bind the agent or any other person who, "without actual knowledge of the revocation, acts in good faith under the power" (§58-628). No divorce provision appears in either captured statute
- Oral instructions
- Neither instrument may be executed orally. The declaration may be revoked verbally, on the terms in §65-28,104(a)(3)
- Carried device
- Nothing for the directive — no device provision appears in the captured sections of either statute. See below
- Citation
- K.S.A. §58-625 et seq. · §65-28,101 et seq. — secondary host, see provenance
Read from the enacted statute, NONE — sec.
The instrument
What Kansas actually recognizes
The two statutes were drafted separately and nothing in either reconciles them, which is why they carry two different witness lists. The power of attorney's list disqualifies the agent, relatives by blood, marriage or adoption, anyone entitled to a portion of the estate, and anyone directly financially responsible for the principal's health care (§58-629(e)(1)). The declaration's list is shorter: it never mentions the agent, and it never mentions adoption (§65-28,103(a)(4)(A)).
Two requirements are easy to miss on a form borrowed from another state. The power of attorney is defined by the words it contains — §58-625 makes the instrument a durable power of attorney for health care decisions only if the writing carries the durable notice sentence, or words showing the same intent. And the declaration is void during pregnancy (§65-28,103(a)).
Carried on you
What a WearableDocs card does in Kansas
WearableDocs is how your Kansas advance directive gets found. Neither captured statute contains a bracelet, necklace, card or identification provision, and neither creates a registry.
What the two statutes do instead is put the document's movement in different hands. The declaration's duty is the declarant's own: "It shall be the responsibility of declarant to provide for notification to the declarant's attending physician of the existence of the declaration" (§65-28,103(b)), and a physician so notified must make the declaration or a copy part of the medical records. The power of attorney has no equivalent provision at all — and its trigger is a physician's determination of impairment, which means the physician has to have the document before the agent can act on it (§58-629(b)).
Neither route requires the document to be carried. Both require it to arrive. That is the whole of the Kansas position on findability, and it is worth stating rather than implying something the statute does not say.
And once, plainly: an advance directive does not bind EMS on CPR. A do-not-resuscitate order is a separate instrument, and the captured Kansas statutes attach no device to one either.