On October 24, 2018, Congress enacted a new anti-kickback law that applies to many commercial health insurance plans, as well as Medicare and Medicaid. The law, known as the “Eliminating Kickbacks in Recovery Act of 2018” (the “Law”), was passed as part of the SUPPORT for Patients and Communities Act, which generally targets the national opioid crisis.
The Law makes … Continue Reading
The Office of Inspector General (“OIG”) of the Department of Health and Human Services, generally, would have concerns about a potential or existing referral source receiving free goods or services, since these free goods and services could be used to provide unlawful payments for the referral of Federal health care program business. However, under Advisory Opinion 16-09, the OIG … Continue Reading
In a recent Advisory Opinion (No. 16-02), the OIG concluded that it would not seek sanctions against a state-run hospital (the “Hospital”) under the federal anti-kickback statute or the civil monetary penalty law for two arrangements under which the Hospital provides transportation aid and short-term lodging to pregnant women covered by federal health care programs. Although the OIG stressed that … Continue Reading
The Office of Inspector General (OIG) of the Department of Health and Human Services posted an Advisory Opinion today addressing a hospital system’s proposal to lease administrative employees and to provide operational and management services to a related psychiatric hospital for an amount equal to the hospital system’s fully loaded costs (i.e., salary plus benefits and overhead expense) plus a … Continue Reading
This week the Office of Inspector General published an interesting Advisory Opinion (AO 12-22) dealing with a cardiology co-management agreement between a hospital and a private cardiology group practice.
Under the arrangement, the hospital would compensate the physicians for certain management, oversight, strategic planning and medical direction services in connection with the hospital’s four catheterization labs.
The Compensation payable to … Continue Reading
Now that the new year is upon us, today’s post will look at the Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Inspector General (OIG), in particular, OIG’s priorities for 2013. According to OIG’s Fiscal Year 2013 Work Plan, it will be focusing upon a number of topics of interest – including some items not addressed last … Continue Reading
This week the Office of Inspector General of the Department of Health and Human Services published Advisory Opinion 12-15 in which it blessed an on-call compensation arrangement between a hospital and specialist physicians on its staff. In finding that it would not prosecute the arrangement, the OIG pointed to several "safeguards" which it felt would adequately protect against a violation of … Continue Reading
Physicians who reassign their right to bill the Medicare program can still be liable for false claims submitted by the entities who obtained that reassignment, as discussed in a recent "Alert" issued by the Office of Inspector General (OIG). [PDF].
OIG also referenced settlements it reached with eight physicians who had reassigned their payments to physical medicine companies … Continue Reading
Two recent Advisory Opinions by the Office of Inspector General (OIG) shed some much needed light of the OIG’s view of marketing by health care providers. Last week the OIG published Advisory Opinions 10-23 and 10-24, both concerning a proposed arrangement between a sleep testing provider and a hospital. The facts in both Opinions were very similar: the hospital contracted with a … Continue Reading
Unfortunately, many physicians believe their activities are “under the radar” when it comes to fraud and abuse enforcement. A recent settlement announcement by the Office of Inspector General (OIG) of the Department of Health and Human Services illustrates that this is not the case. According to the press release, the OIG has entered into a $7.3 million settlement with three physician-owned … Continue Reading