HB 22-1167

House Bill 22-1167, now signed into law, allows healthcare providers to choose a temporary decision-maker for adults who can't make their own medical decisions in emergencies. This person steps in only if the patient's usual representative (like a family member) cannot be found. The bill sets rules for picking this temporary helper and limits how long they can make decisions. It affects patients, healthcare workers, and families dealing with urgent medical situations where no one else is available to consent to treatment.

Official Summary

The bill grants a supervising health-care provider or health-care facility the authority to identify and select a temporary proxy decision-maker (temporary proxy) to make emergency medical treatment decisions for an adult patient who has been determined, by the patient's attending physician, to lack decisional capacity to make informed consent to or refusal of medical treatments. The temporary proxy is to be utilized only in emergency circumstances when an otherwise legally authorized proxy decision-maker cannot be located. The bill outlines guidelines for selecting the temporary proxy and when the authority of the temporary proxy terminates.(Note: This summary applies to this bill as introduced.)