Free Oregon Advance Directive Template

Oregon reviews its advance directive form on a schedule, which sets it apart from most states. Under ORS 127.505 to 127.660, the Oregon Health Authority’s Public Health Division convenes an Advance Directive Adoption Committee that adopts the form used in the state, reviews it every four years, and submits changes to the Legislature for ratification in odd-numbered years.

An Oregon advance directive therefore reads in plain language rather than legal phrasing.

Oregon splits the job across two forms and then offers two ways to validate either one.

Two Separate Forms

ORS 127.529 sets out the full advance directive form. A shorter, separate form for appointing a health care representative on its own sits at ORS 127.527. So if all you want is to name a person, you do not need the longer document.

Signing: Two Adults or a Notary

ORS 127.515 asks you to sign the form and then take one of two routes: at least two adults witness and sign it, or a notary public notarizes it.

What Your Witnesses Must Observe

If you take the witness route, each witness must watch you sign the form, or watch you acknowledge that the signature on it is yours.

Who Cannot Witness

On the date you sign or acknowledge, a witness may not be:

• Your attending physician or attending health care provider
• Your health care representative or alternate health care representative

Signing in a Long Term Care Facility

If you are a patient in a long term care facility when you execute the form, and you are using witnesses, one of them must be an individual designated by the facility and qualified as specified by the Department of Human Services by rule.

Your Representative Has to Accept

Naming someone is only half the step. Your appointment of a health care representative does not take effect until that person accepts the appointment.

Either one works, so choose on convenience. ORS 127.515 treats two adult witnesses and a notary public as alternative routes, and an Oregon advance directive stands on whichever one you complete.

The witness route suits most people signing at home. Line up two adults, check that neither is your attending physician, your attending health care provider, or the representative you named, and have them sign after watching you.

The notary route removes the need to find two people at once. It also sidesteps the long term care facility rule, since the facility-designated witness requirement applies to the witness route rather than the notary route.

One point applies whichever you choose. An advance directive that an adult signed while living in another state still counts in Oregon, provided it complied with that state’s law, the law of the state where the person was located, or Oregon law.

Tip: An advance directive is not a POLST. Portable orders for life-sustaining treatment are medical orders signed with a clinician for people who are already seriously ill, and Oregon keeps them in a separate registry.

1. Decide whether you need the full advance directive or only the representative appointment form.
2. Name your health care representative and an alternate, then check neither will be witnessing.
3. Talk to your representative before you sign, since the appointment waits on their acceptance.
4. Record your treatment wishes and your values in the sections provided.
5. Choose your route: two adult witnesses, or a notary public.
6. Sign and date, then have the witnesses or notary complete their part.
7. Ask your representative to sign the acceptance section, and hand copies to your care team.

Build your Oregon advance directive now and download it ready to sign.

Oregon legislates the elements the form has to contain, and ORS 127.533 lists them.

Two of those elements shape how the document ends. One is a section where you and your witnesses or notary sign, matching the execution rules in ORS 127.515. The other is a section where your health care representative and any alternate can accept the appointment.

That same statute tells the advisory committee to use plain language, naming tube feeding and life support as examples. The instruction is why the Oregon form reads more like a conversation than a contract.

Beyond that, expect the familiar ground: who speaks for you, what treatment you want in specific situations, and what you would want your representative to weigh when your instructions do not reach far enough. A values section gives you room for the last of those.