How to Fill Out and Sign the Arizona Living Will Form

The Arizona living will form lets you record which medical treatments you want and refuse if you end up terminally ill, in an irreversible coma, or in a persistent vegetative state and can no longer speak for yourself. The Arizona Attorney General’s office publishes a free version on its Life Care Planning page, and the Arizona Revised Statutes include a sample form at A.R.S. § 36-3262 that you can use as written or adapt.¹ To be valid, the finished document needs your signature plus either a notary or one qualified adult witness.

Where to Get the Form

The Arizona Attorney General’s Life Care Planning page offers a free living will as a downloadable PDF.² That version tracks the statutory sample in A.R.S. § 36-3262 and may add practical sections such as comfort-care preferences and organ donation.

You are not required to use either the AG’s PDF or the statutory sample. Arizona law allows “any writing that meets the requirements of this article” to serve as a living will, so a document you draft yourself or receive from another source works, as long as it is signed and witnessed correctly.¹

When the Document Will Actually Control Your Care

A living will does not take over while you can still communicate. It governs your care only once two things are true at the same time: you have a qualifying medical condition, and you have lost the ability to direct your own treatment. Under the sample form, the qualifying conditions are a terminal condition, an irreversible coma, or a persistent vegetative state that your doctors reasonably believe cannot be cured.¹

Understanding this before you start initialing matters. Every choice on the form is framed around those end-of-life conditions. You are not making blanket decisions about all future medical care; you are deciding what should happen when recovery is no longer realistic.

Filling Out the Five Paragraphs

The statutory sample form presents five numbered paragraphs. You initial the ones that match your wishes. You can initial any combination of paragraphs 1 through 4, but if you initial paragraph 5 you should leave the others blank, because paragraph 5 says you want your life prolonged to the greatest extent possible and contradicts the treatment limits in the earlier options.¹

What each paragraph covers:

Paragraph 1 is the broadest refusal. If you have a terminal condition, you decline any life-sustaining treatment beyond comfort care.
Paragraph 2 keeps comfort care but lets you refuse specific interventions. Sub-options separately decline CPR (drugs, electric shock, and artificial breathing), artificially administered food and fluids, and hospital transfer when it can be avoided. Initial the sub-options you want and skip the rest.
Paragraph 3 is the pregnancy option. If initialed, it directs providers to continue life-sustaining treatment during pregnancy when the embryo or fetus could develop to a live birth. It is entirely optional. Unlike roughly 30 other states, Arizona does not automatically override your living will if you are pregnant, so leaving this paragraph blank keeps your other choices in force.
Paragraph 4 asks for all medically necessary care until your doctors reasonably conclude that your condition is terminal or irreversible, or that you are in a persistent vegetative state.
Paragraph 5 asks for your life to be prolonged to the greatest extent possible. It is the opposite of paragraphs 1 and 2.

The form includes a space for additional written instructions. If your preferences do not fit neatly into the five paragraphs, write them in. For example, you might want to decline a ventilator but accept a feeding tube. Arizona healthcare providers read the document as a whole, so specificity helps.

Signing and Witnessing

A standalone living will, meaning one not attached to a healthcare power of attorney, must be verified the same way Arizona law requires for a healthcare power of attorney under A.R.S. § 36-3221.³ Date and sign the document, then do one of the following:

Have it notarized, or
Have it witnessed by at least one adult who was present when you signed and who affirms that you appeared to be of sound mind and free from duress.

You do not need both. Either a notary or a qualifying witness satisfies the statute.⁴

Who Cannot Witness or Notarize

Arizona law bars two groups from witnessing or notarizing the document:

Anyone designated to make medical decisions on your behalf, meaning your healthcare agent or surrogate.
Anyone directly involved in providing your healthcare at the time you sign.

A neighbor, coworker, or friend with no role in your medical care is the simplest choice. The same disqualifications apply to a notary. A notary who happens to be your treating nurse, for instance, cannot handle the signing.⁴

Who Should Get a Copy

A living will is useless if no one can find it when the moment arrives. Once your document is signed and witnessed, give copies to:

Your primary care physician, with a request to scan it into your medical record so any specialist or hospital in the same system can see it.
Your healthcare agent or surrogate, if you have named one in a separate healthcare power of attorney, so that person can confirm your wishes and present the document if providers ask.
Close family members, who are often the first people a hospital contacts even if they are not your designated agent.

Keep the original somewhere easy to reach in an emergency. A clearly labeled folder at home works. A locked safe or safe deposit box does not, because no one else can get to it.

The Arizona Healthcare Directives Registry

Arizona law directs the Department of Health Services to designate a health information exchange to run a statewide Healthcare Directives Registry.⁵ The registry is operated by Contexture and reachable at azhdr.org or azhdr@contexture.org. Registering your living will gives hospitals and emergency providers an electronic way to pull up your directive. Contact the registry directly for current submission instructions.

Should You Also Have a Healthcare Power of Attorney?

A living will and a healthcare power of attorney are different documents, and Arizona law lets you use one without the other or combine them. A living will states your treatment preferences. A healthcare power of attorney names an agent, a real person who makes medical decisions for you when you cannot. If you have both, your agent must make decisions consistent with what your living will says.¹

The practical difference matters. A living will covers the specific scenarios you anticipated when you wrote it. An agent can handle situations you did not foresee, like an unexpected surgery or a treatment option that did not exist when you signed. Most estate-planning attorneys recommend having both, because a living will on its own can leave gaps for medical situations that do not fit cleanly within your written instructions.

If you attach your living will to a healthcare power of attorney, the combined document only needs to be verified once under A.R.S. § 36-3221. A standalone living will requires its own separate verification.³

Changing or Revoking Your Living Will

You can revoke or change your living will at any time while you are competent. There is no waiting period and no requirement to explain why. The simplest approach is to destroy all copies of the old document, then complete and sign a new one following the same execution steps above. If you registered the old version with the Arizona Healthcare Directives Registry, notify the registry and submit the replacement.

Then tell every person who received a copy. A hospital with your old living will on file will not know about a new version unless someone says so. Outdated copies floating around are one of the most common problems with advance directives, and the fix is to distribute the new version to the same people who got the original and ask them to destroy the old one.

1
Arizona Legislature. Arizona Code 36-3262 – Sample Living Will
2
Arizona Attorney General. Life Care Planning
3
Arizona Legislature. Arizona Code 36-3261 – Living Will; Verification; Liability
4
Arizona Legislature. Arizona Code 36-3221 – Health Care Power of Attorney; Scope; Requirements; Limitations; Fiduciaries
5
Arizona Legislature. Arizona Revised Statutes 36-3291 – Health Care Directives Registry; Exemption