A pair of federal watchdog reports released Thursday urge Medicare to do more to crack down on nursing homes’ use of antipsychotic drugs and inappropriate schizophrenia diagnoses for residents with dementia.
One of the issue briefs from the Department of Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General offers a stark depiction of how nursing homes are using antipsychotic drugs: as chemical restraints to make staff members’ jobs easier, without taking required steps to protect those patients. The other describes how nursing homes are artificially inflating their quality ratings by inappropriately diagnosing residents with schizophrenia to mask their antipsychotic use.
This isn’t the first time these problems have come to light. They’ve been the subject of much research and a 2020 Congressional investigation, and the HHS OIG itself has highlighted them before. Rather than breaking new ground, the authors said the reports aim to provide more detail on residents’ and caregivers’ experiences and pressure the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services to do more to regulate them.
