Every year nursing homes nationwide flush, burn or throw out tons of valuable prescription drugs. It's estimated that U.S. taxpayers, through Medicare, "spend hundreds of millions of dollars each year on drugs for nursing home patients — much of which literally go down the tubes."
From ProPublica:
No one tracks this waste nationwide, but estimates show it's substantial. Colorado officials have said the state's 220 long-term care facilities throw away a whopping 17.5 tons of potentially reusable drugs every year, with a price tag of about $10 million. The Environmental Protection Agency estimated in 2015 that about 740 tons of drugs are wasted by nursing homes each year.
This is, of course, part of a bigger problem. The National Academy of Medicine estimated in 2012 that the United States squanders more than a quarter of what it spends on health care — about $765 billion a year.
ProPublica is investigating the types of waste in health care that academics and politicians typically overlook. Our first installment examined the tens of millions worth of equipment and brand new supplies that hospitals jettison.
Today we look at the wasteful, and potentially harmful, ways nursing homes dispose of leftover meds — and how some states, like Iowa, have found a solution.
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