Wis. Stat. ch. 154 · ch. 155 · Wisconsin
Wisconsin: how to sign your advance directive
Wisconsin splits the job across two chapters, and the two chapters do not share a name. Chapter 154 holds the declaration to health care professionals — the statute subtitles the form (WISCONSIN LIVING WILL). Chapter 155 holds the power of attorney for health care, which appoints the agent.
Why WearableDocs
In Wisconsin, 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 Wisconsin asks
What you need to sign in Wisconsin
- Instruments
- Two, in separate chapters — a declaration to health care professionals (ch. 154, "Wisconsin living will") and a power of attorney for health care (ch. 155)
- Form
- Illustrative. A ch. 154 declaration "is not limited in form or substance" to the statutory form (§154.02(1)). A ch. 155 instrument that is not the department's printed form must carry the statutory notice or a lawyer's certificate (§155.30(1)–(2))
- Execution
- Two witnesses, no notary in either chapter (§154.03(1); §155.10(1)(c))
- May not witness
- A relative by blood, marriage or adoption, or a domestic partner; anyone entitled to a share of your estate; whoever is directly financially responsible for your care; your treating provider or their employee — chaplains and social workers exempt — or an inpatient facility's employee on the same terms; and, on the power of attorney only, your agent. Under 18 may not witness a declaration
- May not be your agent
- Your health care provider, that provider's employee, an employee of a facility where you are a patient or resident, or the spouse of any of them — unless the person is your relative (§155.05(3))
- Copy rule
- A copy is presumed valid. §155.70(6): an instrument "that is in its original form or is a legible photocopy or electronic facsimile copy is presumed to be valid"
- Delivery
- The provider must acknowledge receipt in writing and file it (§155.60(3)). The department's form also carries a statement for the agent and the alternate agent to sign, accepting the designation
- Who decides
- Two, but not necessarily two physicians. §155.05(2): incapacity is found by "2 physicians … or one physician and one licensed advanced practice clinician, who personally examine the principal and sign a statement". Nobody who signs may be a relative or an estate claimant
- Standard determined
- Capacity — §155.01(8), the inability to receive and evaluate information or communicate decisions to the extent that the individual cannot manage health care decisions
- Trigger overridable
- Yes — §155.05(2) applies "unless otherwise specified in the power of attorney for health care instrument"
- Registry
- Optional, county-level. §155.65: file the instrument, for a fee, with the register in probate of the county where you live. §155.65(3): failing to file "creates no presumption about the intent"
- Age
- 18, in both chapters
- Reciprocity
- Yes — §155.70(10), a document valid where it was executed is valid and enforceable in Wisconsin
- Pregnancy
- Yes. The declaration form states that if the provider knows the patient is pregnant, the document "has no effect during her pregnancy". The power of attorney form's pregnancy box defaults the other way: unmarked, the agent may not make health care decisions if the agent knows the principal is pregnant
- Revocation
- Divorce or annulment of a spouse-agent, or termination of a domestic partnership, revokes the power of attorney (§155.40(2))
- Oral instructions
- An oral revocation works (§154.05(1)(c); §155.40(1)(c), in the presence of two witnesses). No provision for oral instructions found in the captured chapters
- Uninitialled box
- It defaults TO treatment. The declaration form reads: "If you have not checked either box, feeding tubes will be used." The same default appears for life-sustaining procedures and again for feeding tubes in a persistent vegetative state
- Provider may not require
- §155.70(2) — no one may be required to execute a power of attorney for health care as a condition of health care or of admission to a facility
- Carried device
- Yes — but for the DNR order, never the directive. §154.27's do-not-resuscitate bracelet. Nothing for either directive
- Citation
- Wis. Stat. ch. 154 · ch. 155
Read from the enacted statute, 2026-09-18.
The instrument
What Wisconsin actually recognizes
They are separate instruments with separate witness rules, and the statute resolves conflicts between them: §155.70(3) says a principal's valid power of attorney for health care supersedes any directly conflicting provision of a valid declaration.
Two things about Wisconsin are newer than the paper most people are handed. The DHS forms were reissued in June 2026 (F-03435, F-03436). And the incapacity recital printed on the power of attorney form is out of step with the statute the form belongs to — §155.05(2) now allows one physician and one licensed advanced practice clinician, where the printed form still describes two physicians, or a physician and a psychologist, nurse practitioner or physician assistant.
One more thing sits in this chapter that almost no state has, and it is the closest any statute comes to describing what a code on a card delivers: §155.70(6).
What the popular guides get wrong
Corrections for Wisconsin
"Get it notarised." There is no notary anywhere in either chapter. A ch. 154 declaration is signed in the presence of two witnesses; a ch. 155 instrument is signed in the presence of two witnesses. A Wisconsin directive signed before a notary and nobody else was not executed, and the error is invisible on the page.
"Two physicians must agree." This one comes from the state's own printed form, which is why it is repeated everywhere. The power of attorney form's incapacity recital still reads "2 physicians or a physician and a psychologist, nurse practitioner, or physician assistant." The statute moved. §155.05(2) now says "2 physicians … or one physician and one licensed advanced practice clinician," and §155.01(1g) defines that clinician precisely: a psychologist; an advanced practice registered nurse with a nurse practitioner specialty designation; or a physician assistant whose supervising physician affirms competence in capacity evaluations. A Wisconsinite holding an older printed form is holding the older standard. New DHS forms were released June 2026.
Carried on you
What a WearableDocs card does in Wisconsin
Wisconsin's device rule is written for a DNR bracelet, not for a directive, and neither chapter gives a carried directive legal force. Its copy rule is still the closest any statute in the set comes to describing what a code on a card delivers — and the two claims have to be kept apart.
The first is the ordinary one. Wisconsin's device statute is a DNR statute. §154.27 sets the specifications for a do-not-resuscitate bracelet, which is issued on a DNR order and is presumed valid under §154.25(6). It reaches the DNR order. It does not reach the declaration in ch. 154 or the power of attorney in ch. 155, and nothing in either chapter gives a carried directive any effect.
The second is why Wisconsin is worth reading closely. §155.70(6): an instrument "in its original form or [as] a legible photocopy or electronic facsimile copy is presumed to be valid." Of the states with a copy-equivalence rule, none of the others names a medium. An electronic facsimile copy is the thing a code produces. The statute does not say a code has force; it says the copy the code hands over is presumed valid. That is the smaller claim, and it is the one this page makes.
So Wisconsin is a copy state with a delivery duty bolted on. Get the instrument to the provider, and §155.60(3) obliges the provider to acknowledge receipt in writing and include it in the medical record — which is what the card is for.