No. Wisconsin law expressly prohibits a health care provider or health care facility from requiring a person to execute a Health Care Power of Attorney as a condition of receiving health care services.
A hospital, nursing home, clinic, physician, or other health care provider may not condition the provision of health care or admission to a facility on whether an individual has executed a Health Care Power of Attorney, and likewise, a provider may not discriminate against a person because the person has or has not executed a Health Care Power of Attorney. This prohibition aligns with the federal Patient Self-Determination Act (PSDA), which requires many health care providers and facilities to inform patients of their rights to make advance directives, ask whether the patient has an advance directive and document its existence in the medical record, and educate staff and the community about advance directives, but the PSDA does not permit providers to require patients to complete an advance directive, including a Health Care Power of Attorney, as a condition of treatment or admission.
As a practical matter, a Wisconsin health care facility may ask whether the patient has a Health Care Power of Attorney, request a copy for the patient’s medical record, provide information or forms for completing one, and encourage patients to execute one if they have not already done so; however, the facility cannot refuse treatment or admission because the patient declines to execute a Health Care Power of Attorney, require the patient to appoint a health care agent, or provide a different quality of care based on whether the patient has an advance directive. Accordingly, in Wisconsin, executing a Health Care Power of Attorney is entirely voluntary, and access to medical care cannot be conditioned on completing one (Wis. Stat. § 155.70; 42 U.S.C. § 1395cc(f)).
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