Directors Column: What Is Happening at the Commission on Law and Aging

• Date: 01 July 2023

Bifocal July - August 2023 Vol. 44, No. 6

111

Legislative Updates

It has been a busy six months. We have a consulting

contract to review state legislation on guardianship,

adult abuse, and health care decision making.

Leading the way this

legislative season was

guardianship reform,

including expanded

alternatives, some due

process issues, and

visitation issues. A

few states are looking

at major revision or

updates including the

Uniform Guardianship,

Conservatorship and

Other Protective

Arrangements Act.

Real reform is

hampered by a lack

of resources to treat

these cases with the seriousness that they deserve. We

are once again working on the Legislative Update to

be presented at the National Guardianship Association

conference in Orlando in October.

Regarding nancial abuse, the most active legislative

change was nancial services “report and hold laws.”

These laws protect nancial services providers who

believe a transaction is part of a fraud or nancial

exploitation and report it, and temporarily hold

disbursement while the transaction is investigated.

Those laws try to balance the protection against the

rights of the account owner to do what they want with

their money.

Probably the biggest development in health care

decision-making is that all 50 states now have a

provision for Physicians Orders for Life Sustaining

Treatment (POLST) in place. While the name

varies from state to state, these portable medical

orders specify the health care desires of a person

who is seriously

or terminally

ill, developed

in consultation

the health care

professional

and the patient

or the patients

representative if the

patient is unable

to give informed

consent. POLST

is rapidly replacing

out of hospital Do

Not Resuscitate

(DNR) forms. Out

of hospital DNRs

were always problematic in that they were not medical

orders and were not honored by many rst responders.

POLST is developed closer to the time of need for

critical health care decisions, are made between the

patient and the physician or other qualied health care

provider, and more accurately reects what the patient

really wants or does not want based on their current

health care condition. POLST is rapidly replacing

“Living Wills.” POLST is a better system, in that

it is medically based, and it is contemporary to the

need. The role of non-medical advocates in POLST

is to spread the word about this option and encourage

people to ask their health care professional if POLST

is appropriate.

Directors Column:

What Is Happening at the

Commission on Law and Aging

By David Godfrey, JD., Director, ABA Commission on Law and Aging