Maine Healthcare Directive

Maine keeps your health care planning in one document. Under the Uniform Health Care Decisions Act, 18-C M.R.S. sections 5-801 to 5-816, a single advance health care directive can name a health care agent to speak for you and record your own care instructions, including your wishes at the end of life. You sign the health care power of attorney in person before two witnesses, and no lawyer is required to make it valid.

Use this Maine healthcare directive guide as a planning map, not as legal advice or a finished form. The right wording depends on your health, your family, and what you want if you cannot speak for yourself. A Maine attorney or your health care provider can confirm your directive says what you mean. This page connects to the Maine probate and estate directory, the Maine power of attorney guide, the Maine guardianship planning guide, and the guide on how to avoid probate in Maine for the rest of your plan.

What Maine's Advance Health Care Directive Covers

Maine adopted the Uniform Health Care Decisions Act, so it uses one instrument instead of two. A single advance health care directive can carry both a power of attorney for health care, which names an agent, and an individual instruction, which records your own directions (18-C M.R.S. section 5-803). Maine has no separate stand-alone living will statute. The individual instruction does that job.

Your agent may make any health care decision you could make while you have capacity. That authority reaches the everyday choices and the hard ones (18-C M.R.S. section 5-802):

• Select and discharge your health care providers and facilities.
• Approve or disapprove diagnostic tests, procedures, and programs of medication.
• Approve or disapprove do-not-resuscitate orders.
• Direct that treatment to keep you alive, plus artificial nutrition and hydration, be provided, withheld, or withdrawn.

Your individual instruction can address the same ground in your own words, including whether you want treatment that would keep you alive, how you feel about artificial nutrition and hydration, relief from pain, organ and tissue donation, and which doctor you want in charge of your care.

Naming a Health Care Agent

Your agent steps into your shoes for medical decisions, so pick an adult you trust, ask them before you name them, and add a successor in case your first choice cannot serve. Any adult, or an emancipated minor, with capacity may sign a power of attorney for health care (18-C M.R.S. section 5-803(2)).

Two rules shape who acts and how. Your agent has to follow your individual instructions and other known wishes; where those run out, the agent decides in your best interest (section 5-803(5)). And Maine blocks one conflict of interest at care facilities. An owner, operator, or employee of a residential long-term health care facility where you are receiving care may not serve as your agent, unless that person is related to you by blood, marriage, or adoption (section 5-803(2)).

Your agent also outranks a court-appointed guardian. A health care decision by your agent takes precedence over the guardian's, absent a court order to the contrary, and a guardian may not revoke your directive unless the appointing court expressly allows it (18-C M.R.S. section 5-807).

How to Sign It in Maine

Here is the rule people get wrong. The written power of attorney for health care must be signed by you and two witnesses (section 5-803(2)). Maine does not offer a notary as a substitute for witnesses. Two witnesses are the requirement.

The signatures also have to be made in person. Even though Maine law otherwise validates electronic and digital signatures, the statute says the signatures of the principal and witnesses must be made in person and not by electronic means (section 5-803(2)). The optional statutory form makes the point in plain language: after you sign and date it, "you must have 2 other individuals sign as witnesses" (18-C M.R.S. section 5-805).

Maine puts no relationship-based bar on who may witness that power of attorney, unlike its limit on who may serve as agent. Even so, choosing neutral witnesses who are not your agent and not in line to inherit is a habit worth keeping, because it heads off later doubt. You must be an adult, or an emancipated minor, with capacity to sign, and Maine presumes you have that capacity to make and give a directive (18-C M.R.S. section 5-812).

Maine added one narrow exception for infectious-disease isolation. If you are a patient in a hospital or residential health care facility, you have an infectious disease, and isolation precautions keep people and documents away from you, you may direct another person elsewhere in the facility to sign your name for you, using real-time two-way audiovisual technology so the signing can be witnessed (18-C M.R.S. section 5-803-A). Lawmakers added this route in 2021, and it applies only inside a facility under those conditions.

The Individual Instruction, Maine's Living Will

The individual instruction is the part of your directive that carries your own end-of-life wishes, and it follows a lighter set of formalities than a health care power of attorney. An individual instruction may be oral or written, and it needs no witnesses (section 5-803(1)).

An oral instruction still counts, but only if you give it to a health care provider or to a person who could act as your surrogate under the family priority list. Writing it down and signing it removes the guesswork, so put your instruction on paper whenever you can. You may also write an instruction to take effect only if a specific condition arises, such as a terminal diagnosis, and it applies on its own terms (section 5-803(1)).

When the Directive Takes Effect

Your agent's authority does not switch on the day you sign. By default it starts only when your doctor determines that you lack capacity, and it stops again if your doctor determines that you have recovered capacity (section 5-803(3)). The optional form lets you change that default by checking a box that makes your agent's authority effective right away.

Who decides these questions matters. Whether you lack or have recovered capacity, and whether a condition attached to your individual instruction has arisen, is determined by the doctor responsible for your care or by a court (section 5-803(4)). If your directive authorizes mental health treatment, that capacity finding is made instead by a person qualified to conduct an examination under Title 34-B, section 3863. Maine rests these findings on one treating doctor rather than a two-physician panel, which sets it apart from states that require two doctors to agree.

If You Never Name an Agent, Maine's Surrogate List

Skip the agent designation and Maine fills the gap with a ranked list of family members who may decide for you, called a surrogate (18-C M.R.S. section 5-806). A surrogate may act only after your doctor determines you lack capacity and no agent or guardian has been appointed or is reasonably available. When that happens, authority passes down this order:

1. Your spouse, unless legally separated.
2. An adult who shares an emotional, physical, and financial relationship with you similar to that of a spouse.
3. An adult child.
4. A parent.
5. An adult brother or sister.
6. An adult grandchild.
7. An adult niece or nephew, related by blood or adoption.
8. An adult aunt or uncle, related by blood or adoption.
9. Any adult relative, related by blood or adoption, who knows your personal values.

If none of those people is reasonably available, an adult who has shown special concern for you, who knows your values, and who is available may act as surrogate (section 5-806(3)). When two members of the same class disagree, a provider may follow the decision of a majority of that class; if the class splits evenly and the provider is told, that class and every lower class drop out of the decision (section 5-806(5)). Whoever serves has to follow your own instructions and known wishes, and otherwise decide in your best interest and in good faith (section 5-806(6)).

Maine draws one hard line around the end of life. A surrogate may withhold or withdraw life-sustaining treatment only when you lack capacity, no agent or guardian is available, and your doctor finds you are in a terminal condition or a persistent vegetative state. A surrogate may never deny surgery, procedures, or other interventions that are lifesaving and medically necessary (section 5-806(1)). You keep control over who serves, too: at any time you may disqualify anyone, including a family member, from acting as your surrogate by a signed writing or by personally telling the supervising provider (section 5-806(8)). The list works, but it hands your care to a fixed ranking instead of the person you would have chosen. Naming your own agent keeps that choice in your hands.

Changing or Revoking It

A Maine directive carries no expiration date, so it stays in force until you revoke it (section 5-803(2)). The way you revoke depends on which part you want to change (18-C M.R.S. section 5-804):

• To revoke your agent designation, use a signed writing or personally inform the supervising health care provider. Those are the only two routes for the agent part (section 5-804(1)).
• To revoke the rest of your directive, meaning anything other than the agent designation, act at any time and in any manner that communicates your intent to revoke (section 5-804(2)).

A change in your marriage handles part of this on its own. A decree of annulment, divorce, dissolution of marriage, or legal separation revokes an earlier designation of your spouse as agent, unless the decree or that power of attorney says otherwise (section 5-804). Keep in mind that a copy of your directive or your revocation has the same effect as the original, so give signed copies to your agent, your doctor, and your hospital, and replace old copies whenever you make a change.

A Simple Planning Sequence

Use this order as a starting checklist, then confirm the details with a Maine attorney or your doctor.

1. Decide whether you want a health care agent, your own written instructions, or both parts in one directive.
2. Choose your agent and a successor, and ask them before you name them.
3. Write your care instructions, covering treatment that keeps you alive, artificial nutrition and hydration, relief from pain, and organ donation.
4. Sign the health care power of attorney in person before two adult witnesses, and remember that Maine does not accept a notary in place of witnesses.
5. Give signed copies to your agent, your doctor, and your hospital.
6. Review the directive after a marriage, a divorce, a serious diagnosis, or a move, and replace old copies whenever your wishes change.

Pair this directive with the rest of your plan. A Maine power of attorney covers your money and property if you cannot act, and a directive can head off a guardianship of the person in Maine. The guide on how to avoid probate in Maine and the Maine probate and estate directory tie together the rest of the state pages.

This Maine healthcare directive guide is general information about incapacity planning. Maine's Uniform Health Care Decisions Act and the official Maine Revised Statutes control. Confirm anything that affects your situation with a licensed Maine attorney or your health care provider before you sign or rely on a directive.

Sources:

• Title: 18-C M.R.S. section 5-802, Definitions (advance health care directive, health care decision, health care agent, individual instruction, supervising health care provider). Publisher: Maine State Legislature, Office of the Revisor of Statutes. Publication Date: Effective July 1, 2019; accessed July 21, 2026. URL: https://legislature.maine.gov/statutes/18-C/title18-Csec5-802.html
• Title: 18-C M.R.S. section 5-803, Advance health care directives (individual instruction; power of attorney for health care signed by the principal and 2 witnesses in person; who may not be an agent; when authority is effective; agent decision standard). Publisher: Maine State Legislature, Office of the Revisor of Statutes. Publication Date: Effective July 1, 2019; accessed July 21, 2026. URL: https://legislature.maine.gov/statutes/18-C/title18-Csec5-803.html
• Title: 18-C M.R.S. section 5-803-A, Remote signing of advance health care directives in health care facilities. Publisher: Maine State Legislature, Office of the Revisor of Statutes. Publication Date: Enacted by PL 2021, c. 452; accessed July 21, 2026. URL: https://legislature.maine.gov/statutes/18-C/title18-Csec5-803-A.html
• Title: 18-C M.R.S. section 5-804, Revocation of advance health care directive (signed writing or informing the supervising provider for the agent designation; any manner for the rest; divorce revokes a spouse-agent designation). Publisher: Maine State Legislature, Office of the Revisor of Statutes. Publication Date: Effective July 1, 2019; accessed July 21, 2026. URL: https://legislature.maine.gov/statutes/18-C/title18-Csec5-804.html
• Title: 18-C M.R.S. section 5-805, Optional form (statutory advance health care directive form; two witnesses). Publisher: Maine State Legislature, Office of the Revisor of Statutes. Publication Date: Effective July 1, 2019; accessed July 21, 2026. URL: https://legislature.maine.gov/statutes/18-C/title18-Csec5-805.html
• Title: 18-C M.R.S. section 5-806, Decisions by surrogate (ranked family priority list; tie-breaking; surrogate decision standard; life-sustaining-treatment limit; disqualification). Publisher: Maine State Legislature, Office of the Revisor of Statutes. Publication Date: Effective July 1, 2019; accessed July 21, 2026. URL: https://legislature.maine.gov/statutes/18-C/title18-Csec5-806.html
• Title: 18-C M.R.S. section 5-807, Decisions by guardian (agent's health care decision takes precedence over the guardian's). Publisher: Maine State Legislature, Office of the Revisor of Statutes. Publication Date: Effective July 1, 2019; accessed July 21, 2026. URL: https://legislature.maine.gov/statutes/18-C/title18-Csec5-807.html

It is not legal advice.