Commission on Quality of Care and Advocacy for
Persons with Disabilities

Advance Directives for Mental and
Physical Health Care in New York State

If individuals are concerned they may become incapable of making decisions regarding mental or physical health care, an important option is to produce a document called an "advance directive." This type of document ensures that an individual's choices will be honored if the individual becomes incapable of making treatment decisions.

Patricia Johnson, Assistant Counsel at the Commission on Quality of Care wrote a Counsel's Corner article on this topic in Issue 77, Fall-Winter 1999-2000 of the Commission's newsletter.

FAQs and necessary forms on this topic may be found on this site in text format, or in pdf format [to acquire Adobe Acrobat Reader, go to Adobe Home Page and download Acrobat Reader].