Almost one in seven Medicare beneficiaries in nursing homes — most of whom have dementia — are given powerful antipsychotic drugs for off-label uses despite an increased risk of death associated with the medications, a recent government audit found… 51% of Medicare claims for atypical antipsychotics were erroneous and cost the program $116 million. According to the audit, 83% of the claims were for off-label uses.
Full report from Health and Human Services’ Office of Inspector General.
Clever thinking. Patients are probably much less of a problem when they’re on their meds.
Oddly enough, a primary reason atypical antipsychotics became so heavily utilized in nursing homes is because states outlawed the use of both physical and chemical restraints. The next best thing to reduce agitation is antipsychotics
This points to how critical it is as family members to stay on top of things and question the doc as to why your parent(s) are getting such drugs. Don’t be afraid to ask lots of questions. I found this helpful: http://whatstherealcost.org/video.php?post=five-questions
This sounds like something out of Robin Cook’s novel, Coma.
This is not an easy issue to weigh in on (especially as a layman). Nevertheless, I’d like to echo what Devon Herrick has noted. If they did not use antipschotics off-label, it’s not like most of the patients would be happily playing gin rummy. They’d be restrained with straps and even dangerous in some cases.
Atypical antipsychotics are widely used off-label, and not just in nursing homes or just in the U.S.
Perhaps ObamaCare will save money by going back to the older, cheaper, antipsychotics, side effects and all.
There’s nothing pretty about end-of-life care.
Maybe these nursing home executives were invited to an all paid vacation where they heard pitches from Big Pharma while sucking down a Mai Tai and concluded that kick-backs and sedated patients is the way to go (see buying access).