Long-term Trends of Psychotropic Drug Use in Nursing Homes

Excerpt:  “Nursing home residents and their families rely on nursing homes to provide quality care in a safe environment, and nursing homes are statutorily required to protect residents’ rights in this regard. OIG work in 2011 raised quality and safety concerns about the high use of one category of psychotropic drug—antipsychotics—by nursing home residents. [The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS)] began monitoring nursing home residents’ use of antipsychotics in 2012, and in May 2021 OIG published a report that determined that CMS’s existing methods for monitoring antipsychotic use by nursing home residents did not always provide complete information. Additionally, congressional stakeholders continue to raise concerns that nursing home residents may be inappropriately prescribed other types of psychotropic drugs and that potentially inappropriate use of those drugs may be going undetected.”