Signed by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger

Highlights:

- Requires health care providers to provide comprehensive information when requested, including but not limited to [sec. 2 (442.5) (a)]:

- Hospice care; - A Prognosis with and without the continuation of disease-targeted treatment; - A patient's right to refuse or withdrawal from life-sustaining treatment options; - A patient's right to continue disease-targeted treatment, with or without simultaneous palliative care; - A patient's right to comprehensive pain and symptom treatment at the end of life; and - A patient's right to provide a health care provider with individual health care instructions, such as an advance health care directive and the appointment of a decision-maker.

- Requires health care providers who do not wish to comply with a patient's request for information about end-of-life options to both refer or transfer the patient to another health care provider who will provide the requested information and provide the patient with information on how to transfer to another health care provider who will provide the requested information [sec. 2 (442.7)].

Full Bill Text

Highlights:

-Mandates that a health care provider who has received a request for information regarding end-of-life care options must provide information about the following options: hospice care, curative treatment, refusal of life-sustaining treatment, palliative care, pain and symptom management including pain medication, treatment of nausea, palliative chemotherapy, relief of shortness of breath and fatigue, palliative sedation, and voluntary stopping of eating and drinking (VSED) (Sec. 2).

Full Bill Text