Texas Health and Safety Code 166.042 – Revocation of Directive
(a) A declarant may revoke a directive at any time without regard to the declarant’s mental state or competency. A directive may be revoked by:
(1) the declarant or someone in the declarant’s presence and at the declarant’s direction canceling, defacing, obliterating, burning, tearing, or otherwise destroying the directive;
(2) the declarant signing and dating a written revocation that expresses the declarant’s intent to revoke the directive; or
(3) the declarant orally stating the declarant’s intent to revoke the directive.
(b) A written revocation executed as prescribed by Subsection (a)(2) takes effect only when the declarant or a person acting on behalf of the declarant notifies the attending physician of its existence or mails the revocation to the attending physician. The attending physician or the physician’s designee shall record in the patient’s medical record the time and date when the physician received notice of the written revocation and shall enter the word “VOID” on each page of the copy of the directive in the patient’s medical record.
Terms Used In Texas Health and Safety Code 166.042
- Person: includes corporation, organization, government or governmental subdivision or agency, business trust, estate, trust, partnership, association, and any other legal entity. See Texas Government Code 311.005
- Written: includes any representation of words, letters, symbols, or figures. See Texas Government Code 311.005
(c) An oral revocation issued as prescribed by Subsection (a)(3) takes effect only when the declarant or a person acting on behalf of the declarant notifies the attending physician of the revocation. The attending physician or the physician’s designee shall record in the patient’s medical record the time, date, and place of the revocation, and, if different, the time, date, and place that the physician received notice of the revocation. The attending physician or the physician’s designees shall also enter the word “VOID” on each page of the copy of the directive in the patient’s medical record.
(d) Except as otherwise provided by this subchapter, a person is not civilly or criminally liable for failure to act on a revocation made under this section unless the person has actual knowledge of the revocation.