Health care powers of attorney refer to legal documents that designate someone to make financial decisions for your estate should you become disabled, in which case you cannot make decisions on your own. Once you become mentally disabled, your agent gains responsibility of handling all your finances. You can download a form from the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). You may opt to look for a particular POA form for your state on some websites that specialize in legal documents. If you are about to finalize your POA document, you have to consult a lawyer first. You can ask the lawyer about the form of authority that suits your needs best as a principal. Gather all the forms you will use as models for your document. Over the Internet, you can find websites that specialize in legal forms. These sites may allow you to download their power-of-attorney forms. 2. Decide which type of POA you need. Your general options are the general and limited powers of attorney. Thus, it is important to look into the validity of these powers of attorney and the circumstances when they can become invalid. So if you are thinking of giving a power of attorney, read on. Because of the sensitive nature of this, power of attorneys are often only given to people that the principal ( the person giving the power of attorney to the agent) absolutely trusts. But there are still issues and conflicts arising in such situations. How could you make sure your agent would be using the authority well? First, you should appoint a person who you have already proven to be trustworthy and reliable. He/She should be highly ethical so as not to defraud you or steal money from you. Medical hospitals will not honor the provisions stated in the living will. It can state the medical wishes of the person but it does not appoint anyone from making the decisions for them. For people with mental illness, they can prepare the Psychiatric Advance Directives or PADs, which grants the proxy to dictate psychiatric care for the patient as they cannot make the decisions for themselves with regards to their wellbeing.