On July 8, 2024, the Office of Inspector General (OIG) updated its General Questions on Fraud and Abuse Authorities (FAQs) related to the Anti-Kickback Statute (AKS) and the Beneficiary Inducement Prohibition of Civil...more
In coordination with the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC) proposed a...more
11/7/2023
/ 21st Century Cures Act ,
ACOs ,
Appeals ,
Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) ,
Civil Monetary Penalty ,
Critical Access Hospitals ,
Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) ,
Electronic Protected Health Information (ePHI) ,
Health Care Providers ,
Information Blocking Rules ,
Investigations ,
Medicare Shared Savings Program ,
OIG ,
ONC ,
Reporting Requirements ,
Social Security Act
Perhaps unsurprisingly, the Office of Inspector General for the Department of Health and Human Services (OIG) rejected a manufacturer’s proposal to provide free hearing aids to certain patients if they receive one of the...more
On August 15, 2023, the Office of Inspector General for the Department of Health and Human Services (OIG) issued a negative Advisory Opinion regarding a turnkey physician-owned entity (Newco) operated by an existing provider...more
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) announced a new primary care model—the Making Care Primary (MCP) Model—geared towards smaller, independent primary care practices and organizations that want to participate...more
The Office of Inspector General for the Department of Health and Human Services (OIG) recently issued yet another favorable Advisory Opinion on the use of gift cards to motivate patients to receive medically necessary or...more
4/6/2023
/ Advisory Opinions ,
Anti-Kickback Statute ,
Beneficiary Inducement ,
Cancer ,
Clinical Laboratory Testing ,
CMP Law ,
Fraud and Abuse ,
Gift-Cards ,
Health Care Providers ,
Health Insurance ,
Healthcare ,
Incentives ,
Life Sciences ,
Medicaid ,
Medicare ,
OIG ,
Preventive Health Care
On November 22, 2021, the Office of Inspector General for the Department of Health and Human Services (OIG) posted a negative Advisory Opinion regarding a proposed joint venture (JV) for the provision of therapy services...more
On September 15, 2021, the Office of Inspector General for the Department of Health and Human Services (OIG) issued a favorable Advisory Opinion regarding a hospital’s proposal to implement a program through which patients...more
For many health care systems, patient leakage – when patients leave a health care system’s network in favor of out-of-network providers – is a rampant problem that results in substantial lost revenue. While sometimes patient...more
In this final post of our blog series on the substantial changes to the regulations implementing the Anti-Kickback Statute (AKS) and the Physician Self-Referral Law (commonly known as the Stark Law), we cover change to (i)...more
On January 19, 2021, significant changes to the regulations implementing the Anti-Kickback Statute (AKS) and the Physician Self-Referral Law (commonly known as the Stark Law) went into effect. The sweeping changes come...more
As you know, we have been parsing through the HHS rules that finalize important changes to the Anti-Kickback Statute (AKS) and Physician Self-Referral Law (Stark Law) regulations. To recap, our team provided an overview of...more
As promised, our team has been studying the two final rules published by the Department of Health & Human Services (HHS) (one by the Office of Inspector General (OIG) and one by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services...more
12/7/2020
/ Anti-Kickback Statute ,
Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) ,
Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) ,
DMEPOS ,
Final Rules ,
Health Care Providers ,
OIG ,
Remuneration ,
Safe Harbors ,
Stark Law ,
Value-Based Care
On October 29, 2020, the Department of Justice (DOJ) announced the first publicly-available settlement involving alleged violations of CMS’s Open Payments Program, otherwise known as the Sunshine Act. The $9.2 million...more
11/3/2020
/ Anti-Kickback Statute ,
Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) ,
Civil Monetary Penalty ,
Department of Justice (DOJ) ,
Enforcement Actions ,
False Claims Act (FCA) ,
Health Care Providers ,
Kickbacks ,
Medical Devices ,
Open Payments ,
Sunshine Act
On September 9, 2020, the Department of Justice (DOJ) announced a $50 million settlement with Wheeling Hospital, Inc. of West Virginia to resolve False Claims Act allegations that Wheeling Hospital violated the Anti-Kickback...more
9/16/2020
/ Anti-Kickback Statute ,
Breach of Duty ,
Corporate Integrity Agreement ,
Department of Justice (DOJ) ,
False Claims Act (FCA) ,
Health Care Providers ,
Healthcare Fraud ,
Hospitals ,
Patient Referrals ,
Physicians ,
Qui Tam ,
Relators ,
Stark Law
On Wednesday, August 26th, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) issued a notice extending the deadline to finalize significant proposed changes to the Physician Self-Referral Law (commonly known as the Stark...more
The Department of Justice (DOJ) has announced its first criminal securities fraud prosecution related to COVID-19, and it involves health care fraud as well. Mark Schena, president of Arrayit Corporation, a publicly traded...more
6/12/2020
/ Bribery ,
Coronavirus/COVID-19 ,
Criminal Conspiracy ,
Criminal Prosecution ,
Department of Justice (DOJ) ,
Enforcement Actions ,
Guilty Pleas ,
Health Care Providers ,
Healthcare Fraud ,
Kickbacks ,
Medicare ,
Public Health Emergency ,
Securities Fraud
On March 30, 2020, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) issued blanket waivers to the Stark Law that permit certain arrangements between physicians and health care providers implemented in response to COVID-19...more
4/1/2020
/ Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) ,
Coronavirus/COVID-19 ,
Deadlines ,
Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) ,
Health Care Providers ,
Medicare ,
OIG ,
Relief Measures ,
Stark Law ,
Telehealth ,
Telemedicine ,
Time Extensions ,
Waivers
As we previously reported, the Department of Health & Human Services (HHS) recently issued two proposed rules intended to reduce the regulatory burden associated with the Anti-Kickback Statute (AKS) and the Physician...more
11/22/2019
/ Anti-Kickback Statute ,
Beneficiary Inducement ,
Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) ,
Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) ,
Department of Homeland Security (DHS) ,
Health Care Providers ,
Healthcare Reform ,
Physician Compensation Arrangements ,
Physicians ,
Safe Harbors ,
Stark Law
On November 15, 2019, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services ("CMS") finalized changes to the Open Payments Program as part of the CY 2020 Physician Fee Schedule Final Rule. The Open Payments reporting requirements,...more
11/18/2019
/ Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) ,
Continuing Medical Education ,
Final Rules ,
Health Care Providers ,
Medicaid ,
Medicare ,
Open Payments ,
Physician Fee Schedule ,
Physicians ,
Reporting Requirements ,
Sunshine Act ,
Unique Device Identifiers
This post is the fourth installment of our blog series on significant, proposed changes to the Anti-Kickback Statute (AKS) and the Physician Self-Referral Law (commonly known as the Stark Law) recently announced by the...more
This post is the third installment of our blog series on recent proposed rules from the Department of Health & Human Services (HHS) that, if finalized, would implement major changes to the Anti-Kickback Statute (AKS) and the...more
10/23/2019
/ Anti-Kickback Statute ,
Beneficiary Inducement ,
Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) ,
Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) ,
Health Care Providers ,
Healthcare Reform ,
OIG ,
Personal Services ,
Proposed Rules ,
Regulatory Requirements ,
Safe Harbors ,
Stark Law ,
Value-Based Care ,
Warranties
On October 9, 2019, the Department of Health & Human Services (HHS) announced significant changes to the Anti-Kickback Statute (AKS) and the Physician Self-Referral Law (known as the Stark Law) through proposed rules issued...more
10/11/2019
/ Anti-Kickback Statute ,
Beneficiary Inducement ,
Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) ,
Civil Monetary Penalty ,
Comment Period ,
Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) ,
Exceptions ,
Health Care Providers ,
Healthcare Reform ,
Hospitals ,
OIG ,
Physicians ,
Proposed Rules ,
Public Comment ,
Regulatory Requirements ,
Safe Harbors ,
Stark Law ,
Value-Based Care
On July 30, 2019, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services ("CMS") announced more proposed changes to the Open Payments Program. The Open Payments reporting requirements, otherwise known as the Sunshine Act, require...more
On January 18, 2019, CMS announced the Medicare Part D Payment Modernization Model, aimed at incentivizing Part D sponsors to reduce catastrophic phase federal reinsurance subsidy spending. The model, which will begin January...more