Can parents handle an adult child's finances and medical decisions?
Key takeaway
Parents generally cannot handle an adult child's finances or medical decisions solely because they are the child's parents. At the age of majority, parents generally lose legal authority over financial accounts, institutional communications, and health care decisions unless properly authorized. A durable financial power of attorney, health care power of attorney, and HIPAA authorization address different kinds of financial activity, medical decision making, and information access.
Financial authority depends on authorization
A durable power of attorney can authorize an agent to handle financial activities and remains effective upon the principal's incapacity. A parent's relationship to an adult child does not itself provide authority over the child's financial affairs after the child reaches eighteen, as practitioners describe. The document concerns financial activities, including handling financial accounts.
Medical decisions and information access are separate
A health care power of attorney authorizes a named person to make medical decisions when the person is unable to make them. Practitioners describe this authority as continuing after incapacity begins. The authorization addresses decision making when the adult child cannot make those decisions personally.
A HIPAA authorization can allow named people to receive medical information without first determining incapacity. Information access and authority to make medical decisions are distinct functions described by the practitioner materials. Parents may be among the named people who receive that information when the authorization permits it.
Different people may hold different roles
Financial and health care powers of attorney may name different agents. Practitioners explain that the trusted person for financial matters may differ from the person trusted to make health care decisions. The two roles concern separate decisions about finances and medical care.
Without a health care proxy, durable financial power of attorney, and HIPAA authorization, practitioners say even parents may need a court order to manage an adult child's financial or medical affairs. The materials identify these documents as relevant to financial management, medical decisions, and access to health information.