Feds Hope Hitting Nursing Homes In The Wallet Will Cut Overmedication

Ingenious. This tactic will likely only need one win to be effective across the board......
http://goo.gl/GJbYOY

A federal lawsuit against two Watsonville, Calif., nursing homes may offer a new approach to dealing with the persistent problem of such facilities overmedicating their residents.

"Under the False Claims Act, the government can ask for triple damages," explains Kelly Bagby, a senior attorney with the AARP Foundation. The nursing homes also could be fined, she says, for each incidence of filing a false report.

"So every time they submitted a form that said, 'Here is Mrs. Jones' needs' and Mrs. Jones' needs were different than that, each one of those forms is a violation," says Bagby.