Surrogate Decision-making Program
The Surrogate Decision-making Program (SDMP) is a legislatively mandated program which allows a family member or a committee of trained volunteers to make decisions for people with intellectual disabilities who lack capacity to make certain treatment decisions for themselves and have no legal guardian. The program serves people who receive services through the intermediate care facility for persons with an intellectual disability program.
Treatment decisions allowed under this program are:
- major medical treatment;
- major dental treatment;
- the administration of psychoactive medication;
- the use of highly restrictive procedures (behavior interventions);
- release of records or other information relevant to the individual's treatment or condition necessary to obtain consent for treatment or determining the individual's best interest; and
- consent decision which the interdisciplinary team (IDT) concurs may involve risk to individual protection and rights which are not specifically reserved to the surrogate decision maker (SDM) or surrogate consent committee (SCC).
A surrogate decision maker is an actively involved family member who has been identified by the IDT as the SDM, and who is available and wiling to consent on behalf of the individual. Friends and advocates are not qualified to be SDMs. The SDM is authorized to consent to the following treatment decisions:
- major medical treatment;
- major dental treatment;
- release of records or other information relevant to the individual's treatment or condition necessary to obtain consent for treatment or determining the individual's best interest; and
- consent decisions which the interdisciplinary team (IDT) concurs may involve risk to individual protection and rights and which are not specifically reserved to the SDM or surrogate consent committee (SCC).
The SDM cannot make treatment decisions for the administration of psychoactive medication or the use of highly restrictive procedures (behavior interventions); those can only be made by the SCC.
A surrogate consent committee is appointed by the Texas Department of Aging and Disability Services and composed of at least three, but no more than five, trained volunteers. The SCC is authorized in consent to the following treatment decisions:
- major medical treatment;
- major dental treatment;
- administration of psychoactive medication;
- use of highly restrictive procedures (behavior interventions);
- release of records or other information relevant to the individual's treatment or condition necessary to obtain consent for treatment or determining the individual's best interest; and
- consent decisions which the IDT concurs may involve the risk to individual protection and rights and which are not specifically reserved to the SDM or SCC.
Updated: December 5, 2012