New York Enacts New Health Care Proxy Law

This week, New York Governor Cuomo signed S.B. 4422.  While not dramatic as far as healthcare decision making legislation goes, it should help facilitate advance care planning.  



The new law ensures that each state agency create a link to health care proxy information on state agency websites that have significant public interaction and deal with public health issues.  It takes effect January 1, 2014.



Here is the full text:

Any state agency, board, bureau, authority, commission, division, or
other  governmental entity  performing a governmental or proprietary
function for the state that maintains a public website and has a significant
public  interaction in the field of public
health shall, in consultation with the office of information technology
services and the department of health, 
create a link on their homepage to the 
health care proxy information on the 
department of health's website. a state agency, board, bureau,  authority, commission,  division, or other  governmental entity performing a governmental
or proprietary function for the state which determines that creating such link
would create a financial hardship or which do not have a significant public interaction
in the field of public health shall be exempted from the provisions of this
section.