How to Fill Out Wisconsin POA Forms: Health Care and Financial

To fill out Wisconsin power of attorney forms correctly, start by choosing the right one — Wisconsin uses two separate documents, one for healthcare decisions and one for finances and property — then complete the sections each form requires and sign it under that form’s specific witness or notary rules. The healthcare form comes from the Wisconsin Department of Health Services. The financial form is printed in the state statutes. They are not interchangeable, and the financial form says so in bold print: it “does not authorize the agent to make health-care decisions for you.”¹

Both documents are free. The healthcare form (Form F-00085) is available from the Department of Health Services in English, Spanish, Hmong, and several other languages.² The financial form appears in the text of Wis. Stat. § 244.61, with a downloadable version also on the DHS site.³ Every power of attorney created under Chapter 244 is durable by default, meaning it survives your incapacity unless you specifically write otherwise into the document.⁴

Which Form You Need

The healthcare power of attorney, governed by Chapter 155, lets you name someone to make medical decisions for you. It does not take effect when you sign it. It activates only after two physicians, or one physician and one licensed advanced practice clinician, personally examine you and sign a statement confirming you lack capacity to make healthcare decisions.⁵ Until that finding, you decide for yourself.

The financial power of attorney, governed by Chapter 244, covers bank accounts, real estate, stocks, taxes, retirement plans, insurance, and government benefits. It takes effect the moment you sign unless you write a different trigger into the special instructions — most commonly, a clause making it activate only on a formal finding of incapacity.¹

Most people planning ahead complete both.

Filling Out the Healthcare Form

You must be at least 18 and of sound mind to sign.⁵ Enter your full legal name and address as the principal. Enter the full name, address, and phone number of the person you are naming as your healthcare agent. Name at least one successor agent to step in if your first choice cannot or will not serve.

Two sections on this form carry consequences that are not obvious from the blanks themselves.

Nursing Home and Residential Facility Admission

The form asks whether your agent may admit you to a nursing home or community-based residential facility for stays beyond short-term recuperative or respite care. You check “Yes” or “No” for each type of facility separately. If you leave both boxes blank, your agent can authorize only short-term stays. Not a longer placement, even if your medical situation clearly calls for one.⁶ Families often learn this limitation during a crisis.

Feeding Tube Provisions

A separate section asks whether your agent may authorize withholding or withdrawing a feeding tube. Check “Yes” and your agent gains that authority, though a physician, physician assistant, or nurse practitioner can still override the decision if they judge that removing the tube would cause you pain or reduce your comfort. Check “No” or leave it blank, and your agent cannot have a feeding tube withdrawn under any circumstances. Food or water given by mouth can never be withheld by your agent unless it is medically harmful to provide it.⁶

Medical Records Access

Add a line in the form’s instructions authorizing your agent to receive all protected health information. Under HIPAA, an agent whose document is in effect and contains no limiting language is generally treated as your personal representative with full access to your records, but limiting language can cause providers to share only the minimum necessary. A clear authorization reduces friction with hospitals and insurers. Some records, such as substance-use treatment records, carry additional federal protections regardless of what your POA says.

Filling Out the Financial Form

The statutory form in § 244.61 is a checklist. Instead of writing out each power, you initial next to the categories of authority you want to grant. Each initialed line activates a block of powers defined elsewhere in Chapter 244. Lines you leave blank grant no authority in that area.¹

The general authority categories you can initial:

Real property
Tangible personal property
Digital property
Stocks and bonds
Commodities and options
Banks and other financial institutions
Operation of entity or business
Insurance and annuities
Estates, trusts, and other beneficial interests
Claims and litigation
Personal and family maintenance
Benefits from governmental programs or civil or military service
Retirement plans
Taxes

Initial only the categories you actually want your agent to control. If you want your agent to handle everything, initial everything.

Gifting Authority

Gifts sit in their own section, separate from the general checklist. If you grant gifting authority, the default caps each gift at the federal annual gift tax exclusion, which is $19,000 per recipient for 2026.⁷ If your spouse consents to gift-splitting, the limit doubles to $38,000 per recipient. Your agent cannot exceed those amounts unless you write broader authority into the special instructions. If you want your agent to continue a pattern of annual gifts to family or charities, say so specifically.

Special Instructions

The form includes a blank space at the bottom for special instructions. Anything you write there overrides the standard provisions, so precision matters. Common uses:

Making the document take effect only upon a formal finding of incapacity
Naming co-agents and specifying whether they must act together or can act independently
Expanding or limiting gifting authority beyond the default exclusion cap
Revoking a prior power of attorney, since a new POA does not automatically revoke an older one⁸
Setting an expiration date

For complex instructions involving trusts, business operations, or large gifts, have an attorney draft the language.

Signing It Correctly

The two forms have different execution rules. Getting this wrong invalidates the document, and a hospital or bank will simply refuse to honor it.

Healthcare Form

Sign the healthcare form in front of two adult witnesses. Wisconsin law disqualifies several categories of people from witnessing:⁹

Anyone related to you by blood, marriage, or adoption, or your domestic partner
Anyone who knows they are entitled to or have a claim on any portion of your estate
Anyone directly financially responsible for your healthcare
Your current healthcare provider, their employees (except chaplains and social workers), or employees of the inpatient facility where you are a patient
The person you are naming as your healthcare agent

Notarization is not required. Two qualifying witnesses are enough. Neighbors, coworkers, or friends with no financial connection to you are usually the easiest choices.

Financial Form

Sign the financial form in front of a notary. Under § 244.05, a signature acknowledged before a notary creates a legal presumption that the signature is genuine.¹⁰ The statute does not technically make notarization mandatory, but skipping it is a bad idea. Without that presumption, banks and title companies will question the document and may refuse to accept it. Wisconsin also allows the signature to be witnessed remotely via two-way, real-time audiovisual communication, though the requirements for that process are more involved. For most people, a trip to a notary is simpler.

What to Do After You Sign

A signed power of attorney in a drawer does nothing. Get copies to the people who will need them.

Give your named agent and any successor agents a copy. For the healthcare form, provide copies to your primary care physician, specialists managing ongoing conditions, and the hospital you would most likely be taken to in an emergency. For the financial form, send copies to your bank, brokerage, insurance company, and any other institution your agent will need to deal with.

If your financial POA grants authority over real property, record the document with the Register of Deeds in the county where the property sits. A recorded power of attorney to convey land stays effective until a revocation is recorded in the same office, meaning third parties can rely on it until the revocation shows up in the public record.¹¹ Recording fees vary by county but generally run $30 to $50.

Keep the original somewhere secure and accessible. A fireproof safe at home works. A safe deposit box can backfire if your agent cannot access it without the very document locked inside.

Changing or Cancelling the Form Later

You can revoke a power of attorney at any time, as long as you have capacity. Put the revocation in writing and notify anyone relying on the document: your agent, banks, healthcare providers, insurers, and benefits administrators. Until a third party has actual knowledge of the revocation, they are generally entitled to keep relying on the original document.⁸

If the POA was recorded with a Register of Deeds, record the revocation in the same office. Until that happens, the original stays effective in the public record.¹¹ Send stamped copies of the recorded revocation to any title company or lender that previously dealt with your agent.

Signing a new power of attorney does not automatically cancel an old one. Both remain active unless the new document explicitly revokes the previous one or revokes all prior powers of attorney.⁸ When replacing a financial POA, include a revocation clause in the special instructions of the new form.

One other automatic ender worth knowing about: if your agent is your spouse or domestic partner, filing for divorce, annulment, legal separation, or termination of the domestic partnership ends their authority unless the document says otherwise. The statutory financial form states outright that it is invalid if any of those happen after signing.¹ If you divorce and want a former spouse to keep serving, you need a new document.

1
Wisconsin State Legislature. Wisconsin Statutes 244.61 – Statutory Form Power of Attorney for Finances and Property
2
Wisconsin Department of Health Services. Advance Directives: Forms
3
Wisconsin Department of Health Services. Advance Directives
4
Wisconsin State Legislature. Wisconsin Statutes Chapter 244
5
Wisconsin State Legislature. Wisconsin Code 155.05 – Power of Attorney for Health Care
6
Wisconsin State Legislature. Wisconsin Code 155.30 – Power of Attorney for Health Care Instrument Form
7
Internal Revenue Service. Gifts and Inheritances
8
Wisconsin State Legislature. Wisconsin Code 244.10 – Termination of Power of Attorney
9
Wisconsin State Legislature. Wisconsin Code 155.10 – Power of Attorney for Health Care Instrument Execution and Witnesses
10
Wisconsin State Legislature. Wisconsin Code 244.05 – Execution of Power of Attorney
11
Wisconsin State Legislature. Wisconsin Statutes 706.08(7) – Conveyances of Real Property