Make your Missouri healthcare directive.

How it works

1. 1

   Answer a few questions

   About your care preferences and who you want making decisions.

2. 2

   Download your healthcare directive

   A complete, personalized document, formatted for Missouri.

3. 3

   Sign and share

   Sign in front of 2 adult witnesses and a notary. Give a copy to your healthcare agent and your doctor.

What governs a Missouri directive

Missouri's healthcare-directive statute is at Mo. Rev. Stat. §§404.800-404.872. Your directive is valid the moment it's signed under your state's witness and notary rules above; it only takes effect if your physician determines you can't make or communicate decisions yourself.

Living will companion in Missouri

Missouri's living-will declaration is a separate statutory instrument from the Durable Power of Attorney for Health Care. The declaration directs the withholding or withdrawal of death-prolonging procedures. It must be in writing, signed by the declarant (or by another person in the declarant's presence and at the declarant's express direction), dated, and, unless it is wholly in the declarant's handwriting, signed in the presence of two or more witnesses at least eighteen years old, neither of whom may be the person who signed on the declarant's behalf (Mo. Rev. Stat. §459.015.1). The statute sets out a sample form but does not require its use (§459.015.3). The Department of Health and Senior Services publishes an advance health care directive form and directions on its website (§459.016). See Mo. Rev. Stat. §§459.015, 459.016.

Who can witness your Missouri directive

Missouri's health care power of attorney and its living will declaration have different execution rules. Mo. Rev. Stat. §404.810 applies §404.705 to the durable power of attorney for health care, and §404.705.1(3) requires that instrument to be subscribed by the principal and dated and acknowledged in the manner prescribed by law for conveyances of real estate, which means notarial acknowledgment rather than witnesses. Mo. Rev. Stat. §459.015 governs the living will declaration, and §459.015.1(4) provides that unless it is wholly in the declarant's handwriting it must be signed in the presence of two or more witnesses at least eighteen years of age, and the only person the statute disqualifies is the individual who signed the declaration on behalf of and at the direction of the declarant. Missouri does not bar a relative, an heir, a devisee, the attending physician, or an employee of a health care provider from witnessing; the §404.815 restriction on the attending physician, an employee of the attending physician, and an owner, operator, or employee of a health care facility in which the patient resides limits who may serve as attorney in fact, not who may witness. Two adults who are not the agent and who take nothing under the estate remain sound practice, but Missouri does not require it.