For persons with psychiatric mental illness, intellectual disability or addiction who have been determined by their attending physician or a qualified physician to be incapacitated, a second opinion by a qualified physician or qualified psychologist that the person is incapacitated is required before the attending physician is authorized to select a surrogate. The requirement for a second opinion does not apply in those instances in which the medical treatment to be rendered is not for the person's psychiatric mental illness.
Structure West Virginia Code
Article 30. West Virginia Health Care Decisions Act
§16-30-2. Legislative Findings and Purpose
§16-30-5. Applicability and Resolving Actual Conflict Between Advance Directives
§16-30-7. Determination of Incapacity
§16-30-8. Selection of a Surrogate
§16-30-12. Conscience Objections
§16-30-13. Interinstitutional Transfers
§16-30-15. Withholding of Life Support Not Assisted Suicide or Murder
§16-30-16. Preservation of Existing Rights and Relation to Existing Law; No Presumption
§16-30-17. No Abrogation of Common Law Doctrine of Medical Necessity