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McBrayer Blogs
Showing 13 posts in Anti-Kickback Statute.
OIG Updates Self-Disclosure Protocol, But Discourages Action
On April 17, 2013, the Office of Inspector General (“OIG”) issued an updated Provider Self-Disclosure Protocol (“SDP”). The initial protocol was created in 1998 (“’98 version”) with the goal of having providers voluntarily identify and disclose potential federal health care program fraud and work with the OIG to resolve the identified abuses. Specifically, the SDP offered guidance to providers (both individuals and entities) on how to investigate conduct, quantify damages, mitigate potential penalties, and report to OIG. Further guidance came in a series of OIG Open Letters to the health care industry in 2006, 2008, and 2009. The updated SDP provisions supersede both the original version and the subsequent Open Letters. More >
Get Ready to Negotiate: OIG Authorizes Hospitals to Pay Physicians for Call Coverage
Since the enactment of EMTALA in 1986, hospitals have struggled with providing sufficient call coverage to meet federal requirements as physicians have been increasingly hesitant to take on the added responsibility, cost, and risk of responding to emergency department requests for consultation. With patients often presenting in increasingly acute conditions with no health insurance coverage, physicians understandably find themselves between a rock and a hard place as utilization of hospital emergency departments has skyrocketed, particularly in Eastern Kentucky. And, it is becoming increasingly difficult to see these patients in the hospital emergency departments without also seeing the patients for follow-up in private physician offices often without payment. Thus, the movement for hospitals to pay for physician call services started amid a tangled web of intricate financial relationships, power struggles between hospitals and medical staff, and a statutory and regulatory maze of the Stark Law and Anti-kickback Statutes. Finally, good news is on the horizon as a result of a series of recent Department of Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General’s Advisory Opinions, which essentially give the okay for a hospital to pay a per diem fee to specialists providing unrestricted on-call coverage for hospital emergency departments within certain parameters. For physicians, these OIG Opinions give clear guidance and should be a tool to negotiate payment for call within the parameters of fair market value. More >
The Doctor’s Doctor: Professional Courtesy in an Age of Healthcare Regulation
For over 200 years, professional courtesy has been a hallmark of physician practice, a symbol of collegiality among doctors. Historians describe its 18th century beginnings as physicians providing charity care for the families of their deceased colleagues—an early form of health insurance for doctors’ widows and children. Over the years, the concept of collegial care also became the preferred alternative to physicians treating themselves or their own family members. In fact, the American Medical Association’s (“AMA”) first code of medical ethics created an obligation among doctors to reciprocate medical care and to extend the courtesy to physician family members as well. Today, the AMA recognizes professional courtesy as a “long-standing tradition” but not an ethical requirement.[1] The federal government’s commentary about “the provision of free or discounted health care items or services to a physician or his or her immediate family members or office staff,” however, is far more cautious than nostalgic. [2] The Department of Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General’s advice that physicians “consult with an attorney” before extending professional courtesy warns that certain arrangements for free or discounted medical care run afoul of fraud and abuse laws.[3] More >
