Health Care Proxy

According to the Massachusetts Health Care Proxy Law, all patients have the right to make an Advance Directive (health care proxy.) This proxy allows you to appoint an agent, usually the person you most trust, to make decisions about your health care should you for any reason, be unable to make or communicate these decisions for yourself. This appointed person has the legal authority to make any health care decisions you would make, including those related to diagnostic or therapeutic procedures, resuscitation orders, artificial means of supplying food or fluids or other life sustaining measures.

We strongly recommend that a health care proxy be completed prior to admission. If you have a completed health care proxy, you will be asked to provide a copy to the hospital. If you have any questions about the process of creating an advance directive, or would like assistance in completing one, please call the hospital's patient advocate at 617-696-4600, extension 1360. From a Telecommunications Device for the Deaf (TDD), call 617-696-7929, Milton Hospital's TDD, and the patient advocate or a designee will assist you.