According to USA Today (1/18, Alltucker), this month, “the Biden administration…will begin spot audits of nursing home use of antipsychotic” medications “in an effort to cut down on inappropriate prescriptions.” Specifically, “the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services will conduct ‘targeted, off-site audits’ to check whether nursing home patients who are prescribed” these medications “have a schizophrenia diagnosis.” The audit “initiative is part of the Biden administration’s larger effort to address long-standing patient safety and staffing shortcomings at nursing homes.”
The AP (1/18, Seitz) reports, “Evidence has mounted over decades that some facilities wrongly diagnose residents with schizophrenia or administer antipsychotic” medicines “to sedate them, despite dangerous side effects that could include death, according to the agency.” What’s more, “some facilities may be dodging increased scrutiny around gratuitous use of antipsychotic medications by coding residents as having schizophrenia, even when they do not show signs of the extremely rare disorder, a government report last year found.”
According to The Hill (1/18, Weixel), that “government watchdog report issued in November found about 80 percent of Medicare’s long-stay nursing home residents were prescribed a psychotropic” medication “from 2011 through 2019.” Meanwhile, “despite efforts to reduce the use of antipsychotic medicines, the prescribing of another type of psychotropic” medication, anti-seizure medicines, “increased, likely in an effort to reduce regulatory scrutiny, the report from the HHS Office of Inspector General found.” Modern Healthcare (1/18, Berryman, Subscription Publication) also covers the story.
Related Links:
— “‘A red flag’: Biden administration targets antipsychotic drugs dispensed in nursing homes “Ken Alltucker, USA Today, January 18, 2023
