Arizona Laws 36-3207. Health care directives; effect on insurance and medical coverage
A. A person shall not require a person to execute or prohibit a person from executing a health care directive as a condition for providing health care services or insurance.
Terms Used In Arizona Laws 36-3207
- Annuity: A periodic (usually annual) payment of a fixed sum of money for either the life of the recipient or for a fixed number of years. A series of payments under a contract from an insurance company, a trust company, or an individual. Annuity payments are made at regular intervals over a period of more than one full year.
- Contract: A legal written agreement that becomes binding when signed.
- Health care directive: means a document drafted in substantial compliance with this chapter, including a mental health care power of attorney, to deal with a person's future health care decisions. See Arizona Laws 36-3201
- Person: includes a corporation, company, partnership, firm, association or society, as well as a natural person. See Arizona Laws 1-215
- Surrogate: means a person authorized to make health care decisions for a patient by a power of attorney, a court order or the provisions of section 36-3231. See Arizona Laws 36-3201
B. An insurer shall not refuse to pay for goods or services under a patient’s insurance policy because the decision to use the goods or services was made by the patient’s surrogate.
C. If a patient’s death follows the withholding or withdrawing of any medical care pursuant to a surrogate’s decision not expressly precluded by the patient’s health care directive, that death does not constitute a homicide or a suicide and does not impair or invalidate an insurance policy, an annuity or any other contract that is conditioned on the life or death of the patient regardless of any terms of that contract.