A facility must maintain policies and procedures regarding the following with respect to all clients receiving services provided by the facility.
  (1) The facility must provide a client with written information about:
    (A) the client's rights under Texas law (whether statutory or as recognized by the courts of the state) to make decisions concerning medical care, including the right to accept or refuse medical or surgical treatment and the right to formulate advance directives;
    (B) the facility's policies respecting the implementation of these rights; and
    (C) a written list of the client's rights as applicable, as outlined under Texas Human Resource Code §102.004 (relating to List of Rights), and as required in §559.52 of this subchapter (relating to Client Rights).
  (2) The facility must document in the client's record whether the client has executed an advance directive.
  (3) The facility must not condition the provision of care or otherwise discriminate against a client based on whether the client has executed an advance directive.
  (4) The facility must ensure compliance with the requirements of Texas law, whether statutory or as recognized by the courts of Texas, respecting advance directives.
  (5) The facility must educate the client, family members, and staff, in a language each understands, on issues concerning advance directives.
  (6) The facility must provide the attending physician with any information relating to a known existing Directive to Physicians, Living Will, or Durable Power of Attorney for Health Care and assist with coordinating prescribing practitioners' orders with any directive.
  (7) When a client is in an incapacitated state, and therefore is unable to receive information or articulate whether he or she has executed an advance directive, the family, surrogate, or other concerned person must receive the information concerning advance directives. The facility must provide this information to the client in a language he or she understands if he or she is no longer incapacitated.
  (8) When the client or a relative, surrogate, or other concerned or related individual presents the facility with a copy of the client's advance directive, the facility must comply with the advance directive including recognition of a durable power of attorney for health care to the extent allowed under state law. If no one comes forward with a previously executed advance directive and the client is incapacitated or otherwise unable to receive information or articulate whether he has executed an advance directive, the facility must note that the client was not able to receive information and was unable to communicate whether an advance directive existed.

Source Note: The provisions of this §559.53 adopted to be effective July 10, 2024, 49 TexReg 4909