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Nursing Home Abuse

• Suspect nursing home abuse or neglect? What you can do
• How scammers commit elder financial abuse
• Chemical restraint use can be a sign of nursing home abuse
• Common causes of nursing home falls
• Can patient care devices really reduce nursing home abuse & neglect?

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Firm News

Jury awards senior $7.75 million in nursing home abuse lawsuit
Posted on 2/27/2010

Virginia Beach nurse implicated in nursing home identity theft
Posted on 1/29/2010

Kickbacks lead to nursing home residents being prescribed drugs
Posted on 1/29/2010

Cases of nursing home abuse and neglect may go up over the holiday season
Posted on 11/30/2009

Senators pushing back against DEA narcotics crackdown affecting nursing home residents
Posted on 10/31/2009

GAO Report questions ability of CMS to find and monitor subpar nursing homes
Posted on 9/30/2009

Virginia nursing home being sued for $26M over resident death
Posted on 8/28/2009

State Attorney Generals raise concerns about CMS Nursing Home Rating System
Posted on 8/27/2009

Abuse investigation of Virginia nursing home workers
Posted on 7/30/2009

Nursing Homes on the lookout for Swine Flu
Posted on 6/24/2009

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Firm Library

Nursing Home Abuse

• Prosecution pitfalls in Virginia nursing home abuse & neglect cases
• Sexual abuse in Virginia nursing homes
• Signs a nursing home resident is vulnerable to financial abuse
• Who is to blame when one nursing home resident murders another?
• Falls in Nursing Homes CAN and SHOULD be Prevented

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Kickbacks lead to nursing home residents being prescribed drugs

The U.S. Attorney in Boston has filed a 34 page complaint against the massive health care company Johnson & Johnson, accusing them of using kickbacks to push the use of their antipsychotic and antibiotic drugs.  The charges against J&J stem from two consolidated whistle-blower lawsuits.

According to the complaint, J&J paid millions of dollars to pharmacy giant Omnicare in an effort to boost sales of specific drugs used in nursing homes.  J&J believed that Omnicare pharmacists could influence doctors to prescribe the drugs for their nursing home patients, and paid them to do so.

The kickbacks were provided to Omnicare in a variety of forms, including rebates, grants and education funding.  Allegedly as a result of the scheme sales of J&J’s antipsychotic drug Risperdal nearly tripled over a five year period, and antibiotic Levaquin jumped in Omnicare market share from 19.2 percent to 66.4 percent.

This isn’t the first time that Omnicare has been in trouble for such a scheme.  This past November the Kentucky-based pharmacy agreed to pay $98 million to settle similar allegations brought by the federal government and various states.  Omnicare also had to enter into a corporate integrity agreement with the Department of Health and Human Services as part of the settlement.

The prescribing of antipsychotic drugs like Risperdal is controversial, because some nursing homes use it to subdue patients as a form of chemical restraint.  It is unknown at this time if the increase in Risperdal prescriptions was partially due to increased use of the drug to chemically control difficult nursing home residents.

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