FYI on POAs

[dudette10, MSN, RN]

After reading another thread, I thought I would start this one as an FYI.

Background: I'm POA for my MIL, along with my husband. In my state, the form is statutory, meaning that the verbiage is that same for all individuals who get a POA, except for the names of the people who are the POA. When she was hospitalized suddenly, I ran back home to grab the POA. Unfortunately, I grabbed the wrong form. The nurse who accepted the form looked it over and accepted it. When I got home, I put my original back in the folder and I found the statutory form right behind where the lawyer had filed the incorrect one that I grabbed. I went through the papers again and did some online research, which led me to the discovery that my state has a statutory form.

This got me to thinking: why didn't that nurse recognize that I gave her the wrong form? I don't blame the nurse...I blame the facility for not providing their nurses with a blank copy of a statutory form posted somewhere at the nurses station and providing the location of it during orientation. (I realize I'm conjecturing here that the facility did NOT do that, but it's my only feasible explanation of why the nurse didn't recognize that it was the wrong form.)

So, just an FYI...if your state has a statutory POA form, familiarize yourself with the standard verbiage, suggest posting a blank form at the nurses station, and let your coworkers know where the blank form is for comparison against any form given to you by a supposed POA. ?

[classicdame, MSN, EdD]

nurses are not lawyers.

[helikias]

In my state, the nurses don't process the POA's at all -- it's all front desk/admin stuff. Do people usually hand a nurse a POA? I've never heard of that before. It seems like the nurse's primary concern would be taking care of the patient, not the paperwork.