Maine: how to sign your advance directive

What Maine asks

What you need to sign in Maine

Instruments

One advance health care directive — an individual instruction, a power of attorney for health care, or both (§5-802(1)). One optional four-part form carries both

Form

Illustrative — §5-805: "The following form may, but need not, be used to create an advance health care directive."

Execution

Two witnesses, no notary for the power of attorney — and the signatures "must be made in person and not by electronic means" (§5-803(2)). An individual instruction may be oral

May not be your agent

Unless related to you by blood, marriage or adoption, your agent may not be an owner, operator or employee of a residential long-term health care institution at which you are receiving care (§5-803(2))

Copy rule

A copy has the same effect as the original — §5-805, form paragraph (12): "A copy of this form has the same effect as the original."

Delivery

No delivery precondition found. The agent's authority begins on a determination, not on receipt — §5-803(3)

Who decides

Your primary physician — or "a court of competent jurisdiction", or, for a directive that authorises mental health treatment, "a person qualified to conduct an examination pursuant to Title 34-B, section 3863" (§5-803(4))

Trigger overridable

Yes. §5-803(3): "Unless otherwise specified in a power of attorney for health care"; §5-803(4): "Unless otherwise specified in a written advance health care directive"

Registry

None

Age

An adult or an emancipated minor (§5-803(1)–(2))

Reciprocity

Yes — an advance health care directive is valid if it complies with this Part, "regardless of when or where executed or communicated, or if it is valid under the laws of the state in which it was executed" (§5-803(8))

Revocation

The designation of an agent may be revoked only by a signed writing or by personally informing the supervising health care provider (§5-804(1)). Everything else may be revoked "at any time and in any manner that communicates an intent to revoke" (§5-804(2)). A decree of annulment, divorce, dissolution or legal separation revokes a spouse's designation as agent, unless the decree or the directive says otherwise (§5-804(4))

Oral instructions

Yes — within limits. An individual instruction may be oral, but "An oral instruction is valid only if made to a health care provider or to an individual who may serve as a surrogate under section 5‑806, subsection 2" (§5-803(1))

Uninitialled box

The form's timing box defaults to the physician determination. "My agent's authority becomes effective when my primary physician determines that I am unable to make my own health care decisions unless I mark the following box. If I mark this box [ ], my agent's authority ... takes effect immediately" (§5-805, Part 1(3))

Carried device

Nothing for the directive — see below

Citation

18-C M.R.S. §5-801 et seq.

Read from the enacted statute, 2026-09-18.