Health care directive in Ohio: form, signing and who decides
The form, who can witness, who can be your agent and who decides if you have no directive in Ohio.
Checked against official sources: October 31, 2026.
Short answer
Durable Power of Attorney for Health Care
- How to sign
- Notarized or signed by two adult witnesses
- Who decides without a directive
- Yes
The document and its form
- Document
- Durable Power of Attorney for Health Care
- Living will
Declaration governing life-sustaining treatment (living will)
The living will is a separate document.
A living will tells your doctors whether to use or withhold life-sustaining treatment if you are terminally ill or permanently unconscious and cannot decide. Sign and date it at the end, then have two adult witnesses sign or acknowledge it before a notary. Witnesses cannot be related to you by blood, marriage or adoption, your attending physician, or the administrator of a nursing home where you receive care. To let doctors stop nutrition and hydration in a permanently unconscious state, the document must say so in conspicuous type and you must initial or sign next to it. It applies only after two physicians confirm your condition and your attending physician finds you can no longer decide.
Law: Ohio Rev. Code §§ 1337.12, 1337.17; Ohio Rev. Code §§ 2133.02, 2133.03
Signing rules
- How to sign
Sign and date the document at the end. Then either have two qualified adult witnesses sign after your signature, or acknowledge it before a notary public.
- Who signs
Signed by you at the end of the document, with the date you sign it.
- Notary
- A notary or witnesses (your choice)
- Witnesses
- 2 (instead of a notary)
- Who cannot witness
Witnesses must be adults who see you sign or acknowledge your signature. These people cannot be witnesses: anyone related to you by blood, marriage or adoption, your agent or alternate agent, your attending physician, and the administrator of a nursing home where you receive care. A notary used instead must also attest that you appear to be of sound mind and free of duress, fraud or undue influence.
- Nursing facilities and special settings
The administrator of a nursing home where you receive care cannot be a witness.
Law: Ohio Rev. Code § 1337.12(A)-(C)
Who can be your agent and what the agent can do
- Who cannot be your agent
Any competent adult, except your attending physician, the administrator of a nursing home where you receive care, or an employee or agent of your attending physician or of a health care facility treating you. Employees can serve if they are your relatives or members of the same religious order as you.
Law: R.C. 1337.12(A)(2)
- When the agent starts
The agent makes decisions only after your attending physician determines you have lost the capacity to make informed health care decisions. The document can let the agent get your health information right away. It does not expire unless you set an end date, and it continues past that date while you lack capacity.
Law: R.C. 1337.12, 1337.13
- Decisions an agent cannot make
The agent cannot refuse or withdraw life-sustaining treatment unless you are terminally ill or permanently unconscious and the doctors make the required findings; cannot refuse comfort care; cannot refuse care that would end a pregnancy except in limited cases; and can refuse nutrition and hydration in a permanently unconscious state only if you gave that authority in conspicuous (e.g. capital or bold) type and initialed or signed next to it.
Law: R.C. 1337.13(B)-(E)
Revoking and conflicting documents
- Revoking your agent
You can revoke the durable power of attorney for health care, or just the naming of the agent, at any time and in any manner. If your attending physician knew about it, the revocation takes effect when it is communicated to the physician by you, a witness to the revocation, or other health care staff. A new valid health care power of attorney revokes an older one unless it says otherwise.
- Revoking your instructions
You can revoke a living will at any time and in any manner, with the same rule about telling your attending physician. A later living will revokes an earlier one unless it says otherwise.
- Telling others
Once told, the attending physician must put the revocation in your medical record.
- Conflicting documents
If you have both a living will and a durable power of attorney for health care, the living will controls where they conflict. A mental health declaration controls over a health care power of attorney for mental health treatment.
Law: R.C. 1337.12(D), 2133.03(B); R.C. 1337.14(D)
Law: Ohio Rev. Code §§ 1337.14, 2133.04
If you have no directive
- Who decides without a directive
Ohio's family-consent law covers only withholding or withdrawing life-sustaining treatment. It applies if you have no valid living will or health care power of attorney, two physicians find you terminally ill (or permanently unconscious for at least 12 months), and you cannot decide. The consent must be written and witnessed by two eligible witnesses. A spouse in a pending divorce or separation case cannot decide. A tie within a class blocks consent.
- Your guardian
- Your spouse
- A majority of your available adult children
- Your parents
- A majority of your available adult siblings
- The nearest adult relative by blood or adoption
Law: Ohio Rev. Code § 2133.08
Other states, registry and medical orders
- Signed in another state
A living will signed under another state's law, in compliance with that law or substantially with Ohio law, is valid in Ohio.
Law: R.C. 2133.14
- POLST (medical orders)
Do-Not-Resuscitate Comfort Care (DNRCC) and DNR Comfort Care-Arrest orders (Ohio Department of Health)
- Mental health directive
You can sign a declaration for mental health treatment and name a proxy, who must also sign it. Sign and date it, then have it witnessed by two adults or acknowledged before a notary; a named proxy must also sign the same way or the proxy naming is invalid. Your mental health provider and their relatives or employees, the owner, operator or staff of a facility where you live or are treated (and their relatives), your relatives, and your proxy cannot witness. It lasts three years unless it has become operative, and can be renewed once.
Law: R.C. 2135.02, 2135.03, 2135.06
Law: Ohio Rev. Code §§ 2133.21-2133.26; Ohio Adm. Code 3701-62
Free notice: revoke or change a health care directive
Free help in Ohio
- Ohio Legal Help (statewide legal aid website, find free legal help)
- Ohio Legal Help: Ohio advance directives
- Ohio Legal Help: Financial power of attorney
- Supreme Court of Ohio: Standard probate forms (guardianship)
- Ohio Department of Health: Do-Not-Resuscitate
- Find free legal aid at LawHelp.org
Report abuse or exploitation
Ohio Adult Protective Services (Ohio Department of Job and Family Services, county agencies) · 1-855-644-6277
Questions about powers of attorney in Ohio
How do I sign a health care directive in Ohio?
Sign and date the document at the end. Then either have two qualified adult witnesses sign after your signature, or acknowledge it before a notary public.
Who decides my health care if I have no directive in Ohio?
Ohio's family-consent law covers only withholding or withdrawing life-sustaining treatment. It applies if you have no valid living will or health care power of attorney, two physicians find you terminally ill (or permanently unconscious for at least 12 months), and you cannot decide.