(a) Withholding or withdrawing resuscitation from a patient in accordance with this chapter shall not constitute a suicide or a crime of assisting suicide.
(b) The execution or issuance of a comfort care order pursuant to this chapter shall not affect the sale, procurement, or issuance of any life insurance policy, nor be deemed to modify the terms of an existing life insurance policy. No life insurance policy shall be legally impaired or invalidated because resuscitation is withheld from a patient in accordance with this chapter, notwithstanding terms of a life insurance policy to the contrary.
(c) No physician, EMS personnel, health care provider, health facility, health service plan, health maintenance organization, insurer that issues disability insurance, self-insured employee, welfare benefit plan, nonprofit medical insurance corporation, or mutual nonprofit hospital service corporation shall require any person to execute a comfort care order as a condition of being insured for, or receiving, health care services.
CREDIT(S)
(Apr. 3, 2001, D.C. Law 13-224, § 14, 48 DCR 27.)
HISTORICAL AND STATUTORY NOTES
Legislative History of Laws
For D.C. Law 13-224, see notes following § 7-651.01.