Antipsychotic Drug Use Can Lower Nursing Home’s Five-Star Rating

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) is continuing its efforts to reduce the national prevalence of antipsychotic drug use in long-stay nursing home residents. Its initial goal of a 15.1% reduction in antipsychotic drug use was met, so CMS now seeks to reduce antipsychotic drugs by 25% by the end of 2015 and 30% by the end of 2016. The national average of antipsychotic drug prevalence was 19.8% in early 2014.

CMS has been publishing each facility’s antipsychotic drug use on the Nursing Home Compare web site. Now in 2015, as further incentive to nursing homes, CMS will use antipsychotic drug use as a factor in calculating each facility’s Five-Star Rating.  A low Five-Star Rating can have a direct impact on a facility’s census and profitability.

Nursing homes need to develop strategies to reduce antipsychotic drug use. They cannot depend upon physicians to change the drug orders; they need to partner with physicians to develop creative approaches for treatment. Each resident should be thoroughly evaluated to determine the root cause of behaviors that trigger the use of antipsychotic drugs. Frequently, the undesirable behaviors are caused by an unmet need. Once the need or cause is determined, individualized, person-centered approaches can be developed to prevent or respond to the behaviors. This is the beginning of a new year, now is the time to start some new interventions to reduce antipsychotic drug use and enhance your Five-Star Rating.

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The opinions expressed on this blog are those of the author and are not to be construed as legal advice.

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