S1294 Summary

• Revises terminology throughout the Medical Consent and Natural Death Act, changing "mentally ill" to "people with mental illness" and "patient" to "person" for consistency and clarity.

• Adds "Advanced Practice Professional Nurses" (APPN) and "Physician Assistants" (PA) as authorized signatories for Physician Orders for Scope of Treatment (POST) forms alongside physicians.

• Creates a new suspension provision for living wills and advance directives that allows temporary suspension and automatic resumption upon meeting specified termination conditions, in addition to existing revocation procedures.

• Establishes limits on surrogate decision makers' authority, requiring they must respect a person's advance directives, POST forms, and previously expressed wishes, and cannot override competent patients' treatment refusals.

• Updates POST form procedures to establish effectiveness from execution date unless suspended or revoked, and provides that completed POST forms satisfy "Do Not Resuscitate" (DNR) requirements statewide without requiring separate DNR orders.