Are you obligated to pay your deceased spouses medical bills

Chris: We have another text question from Gail in Miami, and she is asking are you obligated to pay a deceased spouse's medical bills and credit cards? Great question. Thank you.

Tom: Chrissy, those are really two different completely topics. One is medical bills and one is credit cards and back in the day in Florida there was a medical necessities law that says that if your spouse went into the hospital you were obligated to pay their medical bills whether or not you signed on a dotted line saying that you'd be responsible for your spouse's medical bills. That's no longer, so that if your spouse goes into the hospital and works up a million dollars in medical bills the only way that you're going to be responsible for them is if you sign on a dotted line saying that you'd be responsible.

Chris: Correct, and--

Tom: Tell me.

Chris: Okay, here is something that is very significant about that and again, you're right, there's a distinction. Certainly there are two different things between the medical bills and the credit cards, but with regards to the medical bills. I know we talk to clients all the time regarding this. Sometimes when you're there with your spouse and you're correct, if you signed you're going to be on the hook. However, if you signed and put that you are the power of attorney-

Tom: Oh, good point.

Chris: -you are not on the hook.

Tom: Very good point. You might imagine if you have a married couple and they're going into the hospital, one's going to the hospital and everybody's excited and-

Chris: Exactly, they're stressed.

Tom: -they're going to be throwing papers in front of you.

Chris: They got it.

Tom: They're going to be saying, sign here, sign here. Not the one that's being checked in, but the other spouse, when you're signing us saying, just put POA after all the signatures and so you're not signing personally, you're signing on behalf of the spouse that's going into the hospital and if you're not signing personally you're not making yourself personally obligated to repay those medical bills.

Chris: Correct, and that's something that I feel that is so important that we counsel with our clients when we were talking to them about estate planning or anything else that we're doing with them. Why? Because if we tell them now while they are of not in a stress situation they're under complete calmness, if you will. Now, when we tell them this, now they'll never forget it.

Tom: Awesome. Great advice.

Chris: To me, that's again, Gail, great question about the medical bills and where exactly, like you said, Tom, again, just to be clear, if you sign on behalf of your spouse and you sign your name, you and your name you could be possibly on the hook for those bills while they're alive as well as when they pass away. They can come after you, but if you sign as the power of attorney now, of course, yes you do have to have a power of attorney. That goes to a whole other thing.

If you sign as power of attorney and you specifically sign that document as POA, then you will not be on the hook while they are alive or when they pass away, either one, period, and the hospitals even more than ever are putting people under the pressure of making loved ones, especially spouse, sign, and they're not being clear about how you should do it.

Tom: Let's be taking a little step farther that let's say we got a married couple named John and Mary. Let's say that John's going into the hospital and there's put a stack of papers in front of Mary and say, sign here, sign here, sign here. When Mary signs her name she doesn't sign Mary, she actually signs John and then signs her husband's name by POA, that's how we know that John is the one to be responsible for any medical bills, not Mary.

Chris: That's exactly right. Very important. Again, great question, and step one, if you're in that situation in the hospital, the person that's going into the hospital, they would be signing first. What we're talking about is only if that person is not able to sign.

Tom: Exactly and by the way, that could apply to the same thing that if you were a child and your parents going into the hospital and they stick a stack of papers in front of the child and say, sign here.

Chris: You got it. It's the same situation.

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