How to Fill Out the Georgia Advance Directive for Health Care Form

To fill out the Georgia Advance Directive for Health Care form, download the official statutory version from the Department of Human Services, Division of Aging Services at aging.georgia.gov, then work through its four parts: naming a healthcare agent, recording your treatment preferences, nominating a guardian, and signing before two qualifying witnesses.¹ You do not have to complete every part for the document to be valid. Fill in the sections that reflect what you want decided, skip the ones you don’t, and sign at the end.

The form replaced Georgia’s separate Living Will and Durable Power of Attorney for Health Care in 2007, so a single document now handles both jobs.²

Part One: Name Your Healthcare Agent

Part One asks for the full legal name, home address, and phone numbers of the person you want making medical decisions for you when you cannot make them yourself.³ Choose someone who knows your values, will hold up under pressure, and is willing to advocate for you.

Under Georgia law, your agent’s authority is broad. The agent can consent to or refuse any medical treatment, admit or discharge you from a hospital or nursing facility, access your medical records under HIPAA, and contract for healthcare services on your behalf. Unless you limit these powers on the form, the agent can also authorize an autopsy, make an anatomical gift, and direct your funeral arrangements, burial, or cremation.⁴ If you want to restrict any of these powers, write your limits in on the form.

Some decisions are off-limits to any agent. Georgia law forbids a healthcare agent from consenting to psychosurgery, sterilization, or involuntary hospitalization or treatment under Georgia’s Mental Health Code (Title 37).¹

The form has a space for a backup agent, and you should use it. If your primary agent is unreachable, ill, or unwilling to serve when the moment comes, the backup steps in without a court proceeding. Enter the same contact details you provided for the primary.

Part Two: Record Your Treatment Preferences

Part Two records what medical care you want, or don’t want, if you develop a terminal condition or enter permanent unconsciousness and can no longer communicate.³ Doctors will make reasonable efforts to communicate with you before relying on this section, so it only takes over when communication genuinely fails.

You choose among three options:

All available treatment: every medical intervention available to keep you alive as long as possible.
Natural death without intervention: life-sustaining procedures withheld or withdrawn so you can die naturally.
Custom instructions: your own specific directions, such as accepting comfort care and pain management but declining a ventilator or feeding tube.

The section also asks separately about artificial nutrition and hydration, which Georgia law treats as its own decision. Initial or check the boxes that match your wishes, and use the blank lines for anything the pre-printed options don’t cover. Specificity here reduces guesswork for your agent and your doctors.

If You Could Be Pregnant

Before a physician can carry out instructions to withhold or withdraw life-sustaining treatment or nutrition, the physician must determine whether the patient is pregnant. If the patient is pregnant and the fetus is viable, the withdrawal instructions will not be followed. If the fetus is not viable, the instructions can be carried out only if the directive expressly authorizes withholding or withdrawing life-sustaining treatment during pregnancy.⁵ If this could apply to you, address it in your custom instructions rather than leaving it unsaid.

Part Three: Nominate a Guardian

Part Three nominates the person you want to serve as your legal guardian if a probate court ever decides you need one.³ A guardianship reaches further than a healthcare agent’s role, potentially covering your finances, housing, and personal affairs. The court is not bound by your nomination, but it carries significant weight.

Many people name their healthcare agent here too, which keeps decision-making consistent. You can name someone different if you’d rather split medical and financial oversight. Either way, include the nominee’s full name and contact information.

Part Four: Sign With Two Qualifying Witnesses

Part Four is what makes the document legally binding. You sign and date the form, and two witnesses sign as well.⁶ If you are physically unable to sign, another person may sign for you in your presence and at your express direction.⁷

The two witnesses do not have to be in the room at the same time. Georgia’s statute explicitly says the witnesses do not have to be together or present when you sign.⁶ Each witness needs to be present with you when you sign, or when you acknowledge your earlier signature to that witness, and each witness signs in your presence. That flexibility makes execution easier when you cannot get two people together at once.

Georgia does not require notarization.⁷ Once properly witnessed, the directive is immediately enforceable.

Who Cannot Serve as a Witness

Each witness must be at least 18 and of sound mind. Georgia law also disqualifies:⁶

The healthcare agent you named in Part One.
Anyone who will knowingly inherit from your estate or otherwise gain financially from your death.
Any doctor, nurse, or other provider currently treating you.

No more than one of the two witnesses can be an employee, agent, or medical staff member of the healthcare facility where you are receiving care.⁶ The cleanest approach is to pick two witnesses with no connection to your medical providers and no financial stake in your estate, such as a neighbor and a coworker.

Distribute Copies Where They’ll Be Found

A signed directive nobody can locate in an emergency isn’t much better than no directive at all. Give copies to:

Your primary care physician, with a request that it be added to your permanent medical record.
Your primary and backup agents, who may need to present it at a hospital.
Close family members, even those not named in the directive, so they know it exists and what it says.

Keep the original somewhere you or a family member can reach at any hour, such as a labeled folder near your bedside or in a home filing cabinet. Avoid a safe deposit box; banks keep limited hours, and medical emergencies do not.

Changing or Revoking the Directive Later

You can revoke your advance directive at any time, regardless of your mental state or competency. Georgia law provides four methods:⁸

Execute a new directive. A new directive overrides conflicting provisions of the old one; non-conflicting provisions remain in effect, so if you want a clean break, make sure the new directive covers every topic the old one did.
Physically destroy the document. You, or someone in your presence and at your direction, can tear, burn, or otherwise destroy it.
Write a revocation. A signed, dated statement clearly expressing your intent to revoke is enough.
Orally revoke in front of a witness who is at least 18. That witness must sign and date a written confirmation within 30 days.

If you are in a healthcare facility when you revoke, the revocation only takes effect once someone communicates it to your attending physician, who notes the date and time in your medical record.⁸

One automatic revocation matters here: if you named your spouse as your healthcare agent and later divorce or have the marriage annulled, Georgia law automatically revokes that designation.⁹ Your backup agent would then step in, which is another reason to name one. After a divorce, review and update the directive promptly.

Why Completing the Form Matters

Without an advance directive, Georgia law assigns decision-making to a statutory hierarchy of relatives after a physician documents that you lack capacity: spouse, then adult children, parents, adult siblings, grandparents, adult grandchildren, and certain adult nieces, nephews, aunts, or uncles. If none of those relatives are available, an adult friend meeting statutory conditions may consent after signing an acknowledgment. When no authorized person can be found, the facility or any interested party can petition a court for an emergency temporary guardian.¹⁰ Completing the four parts of the form puts those decisions in the hands of the person you actually choose.

1
Georgia Department of Human Services. Georgia Advance Directive for Health Care
2
Georgia Attorney General’s Consumer Protection Division. Advance Directives
3
Emory University School of Law. Georgia Advance Directive for Health Care Form
4
Justia. Georgia Code 31-32-7 – Duties and Responsibilities of Health Care Agents
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FindLaw. Georgia Code Title 31 Health 31-32-9
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Justia. Georgia Code 31-32-5 – Execution; Use of Form or Other Forms; Witnesses; Copies; Amendment
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CaringInfo. Georgia Advance Directive for Health Care
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Justia. Georgia Code 31-32-6 – Revocation; Declarants Marriage
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Emory Healthcare. Georgia Advance Directive for Health Care
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Justia. Georgia Code 31-9-2 – Persons Authorized to Consent to Surgical or Medical Treatment