There again... I'm certainly no expert on this. And it is true that laws can vary from state to state. But I personally doubt even your friend signing some sort of agreement would really carry any weight in-&-of itself. I believe only a court can order a person to be involuntarily committed. So even if your friend had signed some sort of agreement, I believe representatives of the hospital would have to go to court & ask a judge to order that your friend be re-committed. And unless the hospital's representatives could successfully argue your friend is still in immanent danger of doing life-threatening harm to herself, I don't see that it's likely a court would have any basis to recommit your friend.

My personal opinion would be the idea of your friend signing something, if in fact something such as this was suggested by hospital staff, would be more of a scare tactic than anything. I really doubt a hospital would use it's resources to go into court to try to recommit someone they've previously released...signed agreement or no signed agreement. At least I can't conceive of something like that happening where I live... based on my own experience. I've been involuntarily committed twice. And both times as soon as I had walked out the door they forgot about me & moved on to the next patient. I never heard another word from anyone about it. Perhaps other PC members would have other perspectives.