The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services is launching investigations this month into select nursing homes, aimed at verifying whether patients have been properly diagnosed with the psychiatric disorder.
"No nursing home resident should be improperly diagnosed with schizophrenia or given an inappropriate antipsychotic," Health and Human Services Secretarysaid in a statement Wednesday."The steps we are taking today will help prevent these errors and give families peace of mind." In 2012, the federal government began tracking when nursing homes use antipsychotics on residents — doing so can impact the facility's— but only for those who have not been diagnosed with schizophrenia.
“The number of unsupported schizophrenia diagnoses increased and in 2019 was concentrated in relatively few nursing homes,” the report concluded.