Sending a child off to college is a stressful and\u00a0hectic\u00a0time for parents.\u00a0 After you\u2019ve\u00a0helped your child\u00a0choose the best college,\u00a0moved\u00a0him or her into their new apartment, and generally done all you can to\u00a0ease their transition to life away from home, imagine the following\u00a0scenario:<\/p>\n
You get a call\u00a0informing you that your\u00a0son or daughter has been in an accident and is in the hospital.\u00a0 Your child\u2019s college is hours away or out of state.\u00a0 You try to call the hospital and speak\u00a0to a doctor or nurse, but since your child is\u00a0over 18 years old, he\/she is considered an adult\u00a0and no one will give you any information on\u00a0their condition.\u00a0 How can this happen?\u00a0 You\u2019re still\u00a0the parent, you still financially support\u00a0and cover\u00a0your child\u00a0on your health insurance!\u00a0 One word:\u00a0 HIPAA.\u00a0 The Health Insurance Portability\u00a0and Accountability Act of 1996\u00a0prevents health care providers from disclosing confidential health care information to anyone other than the patient without written authorization.\u00a0 This is why I recommend every parent\u00a0ask their child to\u00a0sign a\u00a0HIPAA Authorization\u00a0<\/strong>giving\u00a0them access to their child\u2019s medical records and information once their child\u00a0turns 18.<\/p>\n The other essential documents\u00a0you should ask your child to sign before heading off to college are a\u00a0Durable Power of Attorney for Health Care<\/strong>\u00a0and a\u00a0Durable Power of Attorney for Finances<\/strong>.\u00a0 If your child is seriously ill or injured and temporarily\u00a0unable to make medical and financial decisions,\u00a0unless he or she has already signed\u00a0Durable Powers of Attorney for\u00a0health care and finances, you\u00a0may not be able to direct their medical treatment or take care of\u00a0their finances.\u00a0\u00a0In these circumstances, you would need to\u00a0petition the\u00a0probate court for guardianship and possibly conservatorship over your child.\u00a0\u00a0This is a burden that can be avoided if you have planned ahead and already had your child sign the\u00a0necessary documents.<\/p>\n If you have an adult\u00a0child or loved one who would want you to make medical decisions\u00a0and take financial\u00a0actions on their behalf if they were not able to do so for themselves, call me and I will assist you in\u00a0preparing the necessary documents.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Sending a child off to college is a stressful and\u00a0hectic\u00a0time for parents.\u00a0 After you\u2019ve\u00a0helped your child\u00a0choose the best college,\u00a0moved\u00a0him or<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1420,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1419","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-buyers-law"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/buyerslaw.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1419","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/buyerslaw.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/buyerslaw.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buyerslaw.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buyerslaw.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1419"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/buyerslaw.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1419\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1421,"href":"https:\/\/buyerslaw.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1419\/revisions\/1421"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buyerslaw.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1420"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/buyerslaw.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1419"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buyerslaw.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1419"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buyerslaw.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1419"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}