Grassley: Review Antipsychotics In Nursing Homes
6 CommentsBy Ed Silverman // December 6th, 2007 // 3:52 pm
The Republican from Iowa and ranking member of the Senate Finance Committee is turning his sights to nursing homes. After reading how antipsychotics are overprescribed and Medicaid picks up the tab, Chuck wants the Inspector General for the Department of Health and Human Services to investigate patient safety, taxpayer liability and off-label usage.
“Along with overall quality of care provided to a nursing home resident, it’s of tremendous concern that federal programs are paying for prescription drugs that could be unnecessary or potentially harmful for people living in nursing homes,†Grassley says in a statement. “Independent scrutiny needs to be given to the prescribing practices going on with this very vulnerable population and what’s motivating those practices.â€
Grassley has also asked the federal agency that oversees nursing home quality to report on its response to nursing homes that misuse prescription drugs, and he has asked Johnson & Johnson, AstraZeneca and Eli Lilly, which sell Risperdal, Seroquel and Zyprexa, respectively, for info about their marketing efforts with regard to nursing home residents. Grassley was responding to a story in The Wall Street Journal, although The St. Petersburg Times ran a similar piece recently, as well.
Dan
Senator Grassley and others should attempt to discover as to whether or not the prescribers of these meds were or are incentivized by the makers of such drugs that are prescribed to these patients.
Lisa Van S
Way to go Chuck!!…
We also need an Investigation into the Prescibing of these nasty drugs to Infants and Toddlers….
Ed
Maybe Senator McCaskill of MO can shed some light on the subject, since her husband has made a fortune running nursing homes.
sid
anyone heard of consultant pharmacists? How about the newly updated State Operations Manual?
If the answer to those questions is no, please step over to Sen Grassley’s side of the room. This has been something that has been done since OBRA 1992.
But great for me — please Sen Grassley and all of the wise politicians demand greater oversight and even more regulations. You see I am a consultant and anything that creates more work creates more demand. That increases my value and paycheck and actually likely increases cost of care. But hey, anymore money in my pocket instead of the gov’t is fine with this guy.
Big Pharma Employee
Most unfortunately, much of the prescribing can be linked to those CME programs identifying the appropriate teenage patient for antispychotics. All health care providers are aware that ADHD and bipolar disease are very difficult to distinguish even for the most seasoned psychiatrists. Those company sponsored speaker programs could also contribute to the upswing in off label usage of atypical antipsychotics as well.
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