American Medical Directors Association and American Society of Consultant Pharmacists Joint Position Statement on the Beers List of Potentially Inappropriate Medications in Older Adults*

Abstract

Publication of “Updating the Beers Criteria for Potentially Inappropriate Medication Use in Older Adults” again raises many of the same issues about the list’s development and uses—intended and unintentional—since its original publication in 1991 and subsequent 1997 revision. The list was adopted nearly verbatim in the CMS surveyor guidance for Federal Tags F329 and 429, in effect, codifying it with the power of federal regulation, although Dr. Beers himself has denied that this was ever the intention of publishing the list. AMDA and other stakeholders have previously questioned the wisdom of including any “checklist” of medications as part of regulations. The 2003 update sought to improve the list by focusing on drugs and drug-disease combinations, in particular