Can I Change My Advance Directive?

You wrote your advance directive years ago, and life has changed. The good news is simple: yes, you can change it, and Washington law makes that easier than most people expect. For a focused explanation, read what Medical Decisions Can Be Included in an Advance Directive.

Your Directive Is Never Set in Stone

An advance directive, sometimes called a living will or a health care directive, is a document you sign to say whether you want life-sustaining treatment if you are ever in a terminal condition or a permanent unconscious condition and cannot speak for yourself. Because it speaks for you at the most serious moments, Washington law treats your right to change your mind as absolute. In everyday terms, the document belongs to you, and you can revoke it whenever you want.

Washington's Natural Death Act, found in chapter 70.122 RCW, governs these documents. The revocation rules are set out in RCW 70.122.040, which says a directive may be revoked at any time by the declarer, and it goes a step further than many people realize. The statute expressly states that you may revoke the directive "without regard to the declarer's mental state or competency." That means even if a question later arises about your capacity, your revocation still counts. The law protects your ability to change course.

How Washington Lets You Revoke a Directive

RCW 70.122.040 lists specific ways to revoke. The first is physical: you can cancel, deface, obliterate, burn, tear, or otherwise destroy the document yourself, or direct someone in your presence to do it for you. The second is written: you can sign and date a written revocation stating your intent to revoke. The third is verbal: you can simply express out loud that you intend to revoke the directive.

There is an important practical detail with the written and verbal methods. Under the statute, those revocations become effective only when they are communicated to your attending physician, either by you or by someone acting on your behalf. Your physician is then required to record the time and date the notice was received, and for a verbal revocation, the place as well. So if you tell a family member you have changed your mind but no one tells your doctor, the revocation has not yet taken legal effect. The message has to reach the person who would act on the directive.

RCW 70.122.040 also addresses directives stored in the state's health care declarations registry maintained by the Department of Health. If your directive is in that registry, you can revoke it through an online method the department established, though the statute makes clear that failing to use the online method does not invalidate a revocation made another way.

Revoking and Starting Fresh

Most people who want to change a directive are not just tearing it up and walking away. They want a new document that reflects their current wishes. Washington makes that straightforward. Under RCW 70.122.030, any adult may execute a directive directing the withholding or withdrawal of life-sustaining treatment in a terminal condition or permanent unconscious condition. To be valid, the directive must be signed by you and either acknowledged before a notary public or signed in the presence of two qualified witnesses.

Those witness rules matter. Under RCW 70.122.030, your two witnesses cannot be related to you by blood or marriage, cannot be people who would inherit from your estate, and cannot be your attending physician or an employee of your physician or of the health facility where you are a patient. These restrictions exist to guard against pressure or conflicts of interest, so it is worth lining up appropriate witnesses before you sign.

The cleanest approach when your wishes have changed is to revoke the old directive under RCW 70.122.040 and execute a new one under RCW 70.122.030. This avoids the confusion of two conflicting documents floating around. When you sign the new directive, destroy the old copies and make sure the people who held them know the old version no longer applies.

Life Changes That Should Prompt a Review

Certain moments in life are natural times to revisit an advance directive. A new diagnosis may change how you feel about aggressive treatment. A divorce or remarriage may change who you want speaking for you, especially if your former spouse was named to a related role such as your health care agent under a power of attorney. The birth of children or grandchildren, a move to a new home, or simply the passage of years and a shift in your values can all be reasons to take another look.

For families here in Snohomish County, these decisions often come up alongside broader estate and family planning. If you are updating a will, revising a parenting plan after a divorce, or reorganizing your affairs after a major life event, that is a sensible time to pull your advance directive out of the drawer and confirm it still says what you mean. Keeping these documents current is part of the same care you put into planning for the people you love.

Keep the Right People in the Loop

Changing a directive is only useful if the people who might act on it know about the change. When you revoke and replace a directive, give the current version to your physician so it becomes part of your medical record, and provide copies to your health care agent and close family. If you use the state registry, update your entry there too. A perfectly valid new directive does little good if the copy in a hospital chart is the outdated one.

Reviewing and updating an advance directive does not have to be complicated, but the details of proper execution and revocation are worth getting right so your wishes are honored without dispute. If you would like help reviewing your current directive or preparing a new one that fits your life today, the Law Office of Chad Foster is here to walk through it with you.