How to Revoke an Advance Directive in Oregon

Life changes. The person you named as your Health Care Representative five years ago may no longer be the right choice. Your treatment preferences may have evolved after a health scare, a new diagnosis, or a shift in your values. Oregon makes revocation straightforward — but there are notification steps most people skip that can leave outdated documents floating in the system.

How Revocation Works Under Oregon Law

Under ORS 127.545, you can revoke your advance directive at any time and in any manner, as long as you have decision-making capacity at the time. There's no required form, no notarization, and no waiting period.

You can revoke by:

• Executing a new advance directive. This is the recommended approach. A newly signed and witnessed directive automatically supersedes any prior version.
• Verbal revocation. Telling your healthcare provider "I revoke my advance directive" is legally sufficient — but harder to prove and easy for other providers to miss.
• Physical destruction. Tearing up, shredding, or otherwise destroying the original document.
• Written revocation. A signed statement that you revoke the directive.

The cleanest method: execute a new Form OHA 3905 with your updated preferences and representative appointments, then distribute it to everyone who has the old version.

Automatic Revocation After Divorce

Oregon law includes an automatic trigger most people don't know about: divorce or legal separation automatically revokes the appointment of your ex-spouse or former domestic partner as your Health Care Representative.

This happens by operation of law — you don't need to take any action for the revocation of that specific appointment to take effect. However, your treatment preferences (Sections 3 and 4) remain valid.

If you want your ex-spouse to continue serving as your HCR after the divorce, you must execute an entirely new advance directive and reappoint them. The old directive can't be amended or annotated to override the automatic revocation.

When You Should Update

Some situations where a review and potential update is warranted:

• Divorce or separation — your ex is automatically removed as HCR
• Death of your Health Care Representative — your alternates step up, but you may want to choose new people
• Your representative moves far away — proximity matters for hospital decisions
• A significant health change — new diagnosis, surgery, or condition that changes your treatment preferences
• Family dynamics shift — a falling out with your designated representative, or a new family member (adult child, trusted friend) who's a better fit
• You moved to Oregon from another state — your old state's form may not comply with Oregon's requirements

The Notification Problem

Revoking your directive is the easy part. The hard part is making sure every copy of the old directive is replaced:

1. Your Health Care Representative and alternates — give them the new directive and ask them to destroy the old one
2. Your primary care physician — ask the office to replace the old document in your medical chart
3. Your MyChart or patient portal — upload the new directive and delete the old one (Providence, OHSU, Legacy, Kaiser, and Samaritan systems all accept uploaded directives)
4. Any hospital or facility that has a copy on file from a prior admission
5. Your home — replace the paper copy you keep accessible for emergency responders

If you skip any of these, first responders or hospital staff may act on outdated instructions. In an emergency, they'll follow whatever valid-looking directive they find first.

Partial Changes vs. Full Replacement

Oregon's advance directive doesn't support partial amendments — you can't cross out Section 2 and write in a new representative on the existing form. Any modification that isn't a complete, freshly witnessed re-execution raises questions about validity.

The practical approach: treat any change as a reason to complete a new Form OHA 3905 from scratch. It takes 15-30 minutes, ensures the document is clean and unambiguous, and eliminates any challenge about altered originals.

Get Your Updated Directive Done

The Oregon Advance Directive & Living Will Kit walks you through every section of the current Form OHA 3905, includes a witness selection checklist, and provides a distribution tracker so you know exactly who has your current directive — and who needs an updated copy.

See more Oregon guides →