Iowa § 144D.1 - 144D.1 Definitions.

§ 144D.1. 144D.1 Definitions.

As used in this chapter, unless the context otherwise requires: 1. “Advanced registered nurse practitioner” means an advanced registered nurse practitioner licensed pursuant to chapter 152 or 152E. 2. “Department” means the department of health and human services. 3. “Emergency medical care provider” means emergency medical care provider as defined in section 147A.1. 4. “Health care facility” means health care facility as defined in section 135C.1, a hospice program as defined in section 135J.1, an elder group home as defined in section 231B.1, and an assisted living program as defined in section 231C.2. 5. “Health care provider” means an individual, including an emergency medical care provider and an individual providing home and community-based services, and including a home health agency, licensed, certified, or otherwise authorized or permitted by the law of this state to administer health care in the ordinary course of business or in the practice of a profession. 6. “Home health agency” means home health agency as defined in 42 C.F.R. pt. 484. 7. “Hospital” means hospital as defined in section 135B.1. 8. “Legal representative” means an individual authorized to execute a POST form on behalf of a patient who is not competent to do so, in the order of priority set out in section 144A.7, subsection 1, and guided by the express or implied intentions of the patient or, if such intentions are unknown, by the patient’s best interests given the patient’s overall medical condition and prognosis. 9. “Patient” means an individual who is frail and elderly or who has a chronic, critical medical condition or a terminal illness and for which a physician orders for scope of treatment form is consistent with the individual’s goals of care. 10. “Physician” means a person licensed to practice medicine and surgery or osteopathic medicine and surgery in this state. 11. “Physician assistant” means a person licensed as a physician assistant under chapter 148C. 12. “Physician orders for scope of treatment form” or “POST form” means a document containing medical orders which may be relied upon across medical settings that consolidates and summarizes a patient’s preferences for life-sustaining treatments and interventions and acts as a complement to and does not supersede any valid advance directive. 2012 Acts, ch 1008, §2; 2016 Acts, ch 1073, §60; 2023 Acts, ch 19, §259 Referred to in §135P.1 Wed Dec 10 22:57:56 2025 Iowa Code 2026, Section 144D.1 (18, 0)