OIG found that from 2011 through 2019, about 80 percent of Medicare’s long-stay nursing home residents were prescribed a psychotropic drug. While the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services focused its efforts to reduce the use of one category of psychotropic drug—antipsychotics—the use of another category of psychotropic drug—anticonvulsants—increased. This increased use of anticonvulsants contributed to the overall use of psychotropics remaining constant.
