Can the POA of a dementia resident in an assisted living facility ask to see the resident's chart?

HE needs to contact the Ombudsman for the facility. If there is a problem with care, or patient's rights, the Ombudsman can help.

The assisted living facility said no when asked to see medical chart of his wife. All legal documents are in place.

Pateye, a POA is financial. You can ask to see the financial records. For medical records you need a health care proxy, which would have been presented at admission.

Ah. What sort of POA? And - ah-ha! getting the hang of it now... - does it include/refer to the all-important HIPAA authorisation?

I'm sorry. In my original question I said late. I should have said late stage late dementia. 

Usually a lawyer:( or the executor of the estate once recognized by the court after death. POA can do nothing after death. Other family members besides POA unless executor can do nothing. The HIPAA laws were supposedly passed to keep insurance companies or unscrupulous individuals from getting access to info then using it against patients....you have to sign at docs office, etc. telling them what they can and can't tell folks.

Really? - even once the patient is deceased?

So if you're concerned about your loved one's treatment in the facility, how do you go about getting them to cough up the records?

Actually, in the US, if a HIPAA was not granted as well as the POA, you can't look at medical records when alive either. A tricky conundrum we found out when hubs mother was hospitalized recently. CM, POA does not allow access to records after death, only executor can request them. And releasing those records to anyone without a HIPAA on file can subject the facility to SEVERE penalties. Otherwise, all kinds of concerned folks would be getting access to records.

The POA part no longer has any relevance. Your power to act on a person's behalf automatically ceases once that person dies.

But, as the person's concerned relative or friend or advocate or really anyone who has any business to know, yes of course you can ask. And if the facility has any sense, having checked your credentials they will comply without fuss - before you have to ask someone with a bit more legal muscle to do it for you instead.

If there a reason why the Power of Attorney wants to see the chart? Now a days, "charts" are on computers, so depending on the Assisting Living or Nursing Home rules, the POA may or may not get a copy forwarded to him/her.