The law is designed to define and guide the interactions of citizens in a wide variety of circumstances, from doing business to transacting property to caring for each other when we are ill or injured. The healthcare law in Bossier City, Louisiana has evolved alongside the law in the rest of the state to cover a wide variety of circumstances.
Areas Covered
There are several specific categories of law covered under the banner of healthcare law in Bossier City, Louisiana:
- Power of Attorney or Mandate. A power of attorney or mandate grants legal authority over your decisions to a third party. This is a very powerful tool that can allow decisions to be made in your best interests when you have the expectation or possibility of being unable to make decisions for yourself – for example, during a prolonged illness, you will be out of state for a prolonged period of time, or when there is a known possibility of losing the ability to communicate or make your wishes known. A power of attorney or mandate can be limited to specific types of decisions or actions or can be for all decisions such that the purpose of the authority affects the type of mandate executed.
- Euthanasia. Also known as assisted suicide, euthanasia is explicitly criminalized throughout all of Louisiana.
- Living Wills. A living will is a document that is designed to convey your wishes regarding your medical care, resuscitation procedures, nutrition and hydration, and other wishes in the event that you are unable to convey these wishes on your own. While the most common use of these documents under healthcare law in Bossier City, Louisiana is to control medical care in the event of medical emergency, they can be used to convey other desires and preferences as well. Living wills help ease the burden of difficult decisions for your family.
- Medical Records and Privacy. This body of law controls the manner in which medical data can be collected and stored by healthcare providers; how, when, and with what entities this data can be shared; how long the data must be maintained; and the requirements for obtaining copies.
