Make your Montana 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 Montana.

3. 3

   Sign and share

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

What governs a Montana directive

Montana's healthcare-directive statute is at Mont. Code §50-9-101 et seq. The official form is the Declaration. 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.

File your directive with Montana

Montana operates the Montana End-of-Life Registry, a database hospitals can search when you arrive unable to speak. Operated by the Montana Department of Justice under Mont. Code §50-9-501. Stores advance health care directives and makes them available to healthcare providers. Registration is paper-only (electronic filing is not available).

Montana End-of-Life Registry →

Who can witness your Montana directive

MCA §50-9-103(1) requires only that the declaration be signed by the declarant, or by another at the declarant's direction, and witnessed by two individuals. Montana imposes no statutory disqualification on who may serve as a witness to this declaration: it does not bar a relative, an heir, the designee named to make treatment decisions, the attending physician, an employee of a health care provider, or a person financially responsible for the declarant's care. The optional statutory forms at §50-9-103(2) and (3) ask each witness to attest only that the declarant voluntarily signed the document in the witness's presence. Two disinterested adults remain sound practice, because a witness with no stake in the outcome is harder to challenge if the declaration is later questioned, but §50-9-103 does not require it.