Do you have a child going to college this fall? Well, most new college-age kids have recently turned 18, and with that comes a big change to what legal documents parents now have access to.
A local lawyer outlines the steps you should be taking in the case of an emergency.
“In order to continue to be able to make decisions on behalf of your child, what has to happen is that 18-year-old child needs to put in place certain documents designating their parents as their agents to make certain decisions,” said James Crosland, an estate planning attorney at Stein Sperling in Rockville, Maryland.
Crosland said there are three major documents that he sees as potential issues in an emergency. These aren’t forms parents can fill out themselves; they require the adult child’s explicit consent.
Those are HIPAA authorization, health care power of attorney and durable power of attorney.
“The first document is called an Advanced Medical Directive, and what that document does is it allows the child to designate agents to make medical decisions on their behalf, if the child loses the ability to make medical decisions for themselves,” Crosland said.
The second document is a HIPAA release form, which Crosland said “designates agents that may receive the child’s medical records.”
He said it’s important for parents to know that even if their children are on their health care or insurance plan, that HIPAA privacy laws still are in effect.
“If the child is on the parents’ health care plan, yes, the parents may still have a lot of rights, depending on what the insurance carrier wants to do. But HIPAA regulations will nonetheless apply,” Crosland said.
The third document, durable power of attorney, gives parents access to financial and legal matters.
“It allows the parents to continue to have the ability to make the decisions that they previously automatically were able to make when their child was a minor,” Crosland said.
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