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Rules, Policy Discussed For End-Of-Life Option

DENVER (CBS4)- The Colorado Department of Health and Environment wrapped up a session to set policy for Colorado's Right-to-Die law on Wednesday afternoon. Leaders drafted and approved rules for doctors prescribing end-of-life drugs.

The meeting focused on how the Department of Health will oversee the process of end-of-life choices and made decisions on rules concerning how information about the choice is reported and collected for data purposes.

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Some of those options include who prescribed the life-ending medication, who was prescribed the medication but then chose not to fill it or had the prescription filled but chose not to take the medication.

Once a physician determines that a patient qualifies for medical-aid-in-dying, there is a lot of information they must report to the Department of Health. That includes those who took the medication and those who didn't but also the attending physician's diagnosis and prognosis and the mental state of the patient at the time of the request.

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Those who choose medical-aid-in-dying will not have that listed as the manner of death on the death certificate.

What the board will try to finalize is what information should be reported and the process to do that. The data collection is also an option to monitor compliance with the law and to facilitate data collection that will be compiled into an annual statistical report.

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Much of the information collected is confidential but the report will allow state health experts to track how many people have used medical-aid-in-dying.

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