POLST for Patients

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Understand Your POLST Form Decisions

The POLST form helps you make specific medical decisions about the care you want — and do not want — if you cannot speak for yourself, ensuring your treatment aligns with your goals and values.

What treatments are listed on the POLST form?

The POLST form is a very basic medical order between you and your healthcare provider, and it tells emergency responders and other healthcare professionals what life-saving measures you want if you become unresponsive. There are three essential questions:

  1. Whether or not you want CPR performed.
  2. What kind of care you want (full/intensive, selective, or comfort focused).
  3. What level of medically assisted nutrition you want.

Decision 1: CPR or No CPR

Deciding between accepting CPR and not accepting CPR in the event you stop breathing or your heart stops is the first option on the POLST form. For most people, CPR and other life-saving measures are highly appropriate and can prevent premature death. For seriously ill or older people experiencing frailty due to aging who are already near the end of life, resuscitation attempts can be unbearably painful, traumatic, and ultimately, ineffective.

Decision 2: Treatment Level: Intensive, Selective, Comfort-Focused

After the CPR option, the next option is the kind of care you want. There are three common approaches to medical care that are important for you to know about and discuss with your family and doctor: full/intensive, selective, and comfort-only. The type you choose depends on your medical condition, your prognosis, and what’s important to you.

Decision 3: Medically Assisted Nutrition

The final choice to make on the POLST form is the level of medically assisted nutrition you would like when you no longer have the desire or strength to eat. This section typically includes three options: no artificial feeding, temporary artificial feeding, and a surgically implanted feeding tube.

How POLST Brings Comfort to Seriously Ill and Frail People

The POLST form lets people choose comfort-focused care (often called “Comfort Measures Only” or “Allow Natural Death”), which prioritizes symptom relief (pain, shortness of breath, anxiety) and avoids aggressive life-prolonging interventions that can be traumatic. Comfort-focused care explicitly directs clinicians to keep the patient comfortable and avoid hospital transfers unless comfort can’t be maintained.

FAQs About Understanding the POLST Form

  • How do I fill out a POLST form?

    A POLST form is a medical order that should be completed with your health care team and provider. POLST is not a document a patient completes on their own. It is completed after a discussion with their care team and provider about diagnosis, prognosis, treatment options, and goals of care.

  • What does my POLST form mean?

    A conversation with your provider about what treatments you want should occur prior to your filling out and signing a POLST form. For a reminder, or for help sharing what your form means with others, see our What Your POLST Form Means guide. This guide goes with the National POLST Form, so your POLST form may look a little different.

  • Should the POLST form be used to guide daily care decisions?

    Yes. POLST forms do not just guide care during emergencies. The goals of care and medical interventions selected on the form are used to guide decisions regarding artificial nutrition, and the provision of other treatments for the patient.

Your Next Step

Manage Your POLST Form

Learn where to keep your POLST form so that it can easily be found, and how to change or void it.

Manage POLST Form