False Claims Act Insights - Physician, Refer Thyself: How Stark Law and FCA Intersect
2022 Resolutions: What Healthcare Practices Need To Tackle In the New Year
Goran Musinovic on Healthcare Real Estate Compliance
Podcast: CMS and OIG Final Rules for Innovating Your Value-Based Payment Program - Diagnosing Health Care
Compliance Perspectives: Changes to the Physician Self-Referral and Anti-Kickback Rules
Anti Kickback and Stark Law Enforcement and Compliance Issues
The Department of Justice (DOJ) recently filed a complaint against Erlanger Health System (Erlanger), a county-owned public health system, and two of its Tennessee hospitals alleging that the health system systemically...more
In early May 2024, the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC) agreed to pay $38 million to resolve a False Claims Act case based on alleged Stark Law violations. The size of the settlement in United States ex rel. J....more
When negotiating physician compensation issues, hospitals frequently rely upon the premise they must pay fair market value compensation in order to comply with the provisions of the Stark Act prohibiting referrals in exchange...more
Each year, the Department of Justice (DOJ) recovers millions of dollars through False Claims Act (FCA) settlements, and 2021 was no exception. Some of the most sizeable or otherwise noteworthy settlements from 2021 were with...more
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services’ (“CMS”) new final rule amending the implementing regulations of the Physician Self-Referral Law (“Stark Law”), in part, defines fundamental terms, such as “fair market value” and...more
On April 3, 2020, the Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Inspector General (“OIG”) issued a policy statement of enforcement discretion (the “Policy Statement”) regarding sanctions under the Federal...more
While we are waiting for final disposition of the AKS Safe Harbors and Stark Exceptions proposed in October of 2019, since the comment period expired December 31, 2019 and final rules have not been issued, I thought we should...more
This Client Alert serves as the third in a three-part series in which we describe and analyze the rules proposed by the Department of Health and Human Services (“HHS”) Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (“CMS”) as part...more
Hospitals and physicians must consider many items when a hospital is putting together an employment contract with a physician. One question we have seen more and more hospitals ask is whether a hospital may insert a provision...more
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) will be putting hospitals in an untenable position if recent proposed rulemaking is implemented as is. In its proposal for acting on legislation reducing payments to new,...more
After 10 years of litigation, including two trials and appeals to the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) and Tuomey Healthcare System (Tuomey) have entered into a settlement of DOJ's action...more
I. Stark Law and False Claims Act - The FCA has become the primary enforcement vehicle for the Ethics in Patient Referrals Act, better known as the Stark Law. There are now more than 150 public cases citing to both the...more
After the federal government’s victory against Tuomey Hospital, we have seen an increasing number of large False Claims Act (FCA) settlements with hospitals involving Stark Law allegations. Relators are even citing, as...more
The $69.5 million settlement by North Broward Hospital District in Fort Lauderdale, Florida to resolve False Claims Act allegations paints a cautionary tale of the importance of hospital practices and optics in connection...more
Are the Circuits A-Splitting? The Ninth Circuit Declines to Follow the Second Circuit's Insider Trading Decision in U.S. v. Newman - Why it matters: On July 6, 2015, the Ninth Circuit in U.S. v. Salman declined to...more
On July 2, 2015, the Fourth Circuit affirmed a $237,454,195 judgment against Tuomey Health Care System (Tuomey) for violations of the Federal False Claims Act (FCA), which liability arose from violations of the Stark law....more
New care delivery models and healthcare reimbursement trends are heating up the market for hospital employment of physicians yet again, but does a productivity-based compensation model still work in this environment?...more