FCA UPDATE
FCA UPDATE
Exploring Recent Developments in False Claims Act Litigation, Enforcement and Compliance
FCA UPDATE
Exploring Recent Developments in False Claims Act Litigation, Enforcement and Compliance
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Stark Law Proposed Change Affects Group Practice Special Rules for Productivity Bonuses, Profit Shares

By , , , , , and on Oct 22, 2019
Posted In

On October 9, 2019, the US Department of Health and Human Services Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) published proposed changes to the physician self-referral law (Stark Law). Physician practices are subject to the Stark Law, and the proposed rule includes an important clarification affecting certain group practices’ compensation models.

CMS proposes to revise its regulations to clarify the special rule for group practice distributions of income from Stark designated health services (DHS). Compliance with this special rule is a requirement of the Stark Law’s definition of a “group practice,” and compliance with the “group practice” definition is generally necessary for physician groups to have the protection of the in-office ancillary services (IOAS) exception to the Stark Law. The special rule for sharing DHS profits permits a group, or a pod of five or more physicians in the group, to pool their DHS income and distribute the pool in a manner that does not directly take into account the volume or value of any physician’s referrals for DHS.

For years, there has been a debate within the health law bar regarding how these DHS income pools can be structured under the special rule. One position is that the special rule permits pools to be organized by DHS, meaning, for example, that if the group’s only DHS are imaging and physical therapy services (PT), the group can have one pool for diagnostic imaging income in which one set of five or more physicians participate, and another pool for PT income in which another (perhaps overlapping) set of five or more physicians participate (split-DHS income pooling). The other position is that the special rule requires that the DHS income pool must include all the DHS generated by the participating physicians. In such a case, the imaging and PT pools described above would have to be consolidated (all-DHS income pooling).

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HHS Proposes Substantial Changes to the Stark Law and the Anti-Kickback Statute Regulations

By , , , , and on Oct 9, 2019
Posted In ,

On October 9, 2019, the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) published proposed changes to the physician self-referral law (Stark Law) (Stark Proposed Rule) and the Anti-Kickback Statute (AKS) and the Beneficiary Inducement Civil Monetary Penalty Law (CMPL) (AKS Proposed Rule).

The proposed rules represent some of the most significant potential changes to these laws in the last decade. HHS Deputy Secretary Eric Hargan said that they “would be a historic reform of how healthcare is regulated in America.” This On the Subject provides a high-level overview of key provisions in the proposed rules. More in-depth analysis will follow at our Regulatory Sprint Resource Page.

The “Sprint”

The Stark Law and AKS Proposed Rules have been promulgated as part of HHS’s “Regulatory Sprint to Coordinated Care,” which was launched in 2018 with the goal of reducing regulatory burden and incentivizing coordinated care. As part of this initiative, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) and the HHS Office of Inspector General (OIG) began scrutinizing a variety of long-standing regulatory requirements and prohibitions to determine whether they unnecessarily hinder the innovative arrangements that policymakers are otherwise hoping to see develop. The agencies took the step of formally seeking public input on this topic by issuing requests for information (RFIs) in June and August 2018. More information about HHS’s Sprint and the RFIs is available on our Regulatory Sprint Resource Page.

The Proposals

The Proposed Rules reflect a coordinated effort between CMS and OIG to address various challenges to the transition to value-based care. Both agencies clearly recognize that the two laws often operate in tandem, but they also emphasize that they are distinct and separate enforcement vehicles. Thus, in some instances OIG’s proposals may be more restrictive that CMS’s, and both agencies state that the AKS may act as a “backstop” to protect against arrangements that meet a Stark Law exception but are nonetheless considered abusive. CMS also proposes to remove compliance with the AKS as a requirement from several Stark Law exceptions, further underscoring the laws’ separateness.

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HHS Will Soon Seek Public Comment on Anti-Kickback Statute Reform

By on Jul 23, 2018
Posted In ,

During a July 17, 2018, hearing before the House Ways and Means Subcommittee on Health, United States Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Deputy Secretary Eric Hargan testified about HHS’ efforts to review and address obstacles that longstanding fraud and abuse laws pose to shifting the Medicare payment system to a value-based, coordinated care payment system. Deputy Secretary Hargan confirmed that the agency is looking at regulatory reforms to both the physician self-referral law (Stark Law) and the Anti-Kickback Statute (AKS) as part of HHS’ “Regulatory Sprint to Coordinate Care.”

According to Hargan’s testimony, “the goal of the sprint is to remove regulatory barriers to coordinated care while ensuring patient safety. We want to genuinely engage stakeholders in this effort, and solicit feedback at each stage—but this is a sprint, not a jog. These words were chosen specifically because we want to fix, as quickly as possible, the regulatory processes that have increased provider burden.”

As part of this Sprint, in June the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) issued a broad Stark Law Request for Information (RFI) that solicited public comments on how the Stark Law impedes care coordination and how Stark Law exceptions could be modified or create to promote such coordination as well as on how other exceptions may require regulatory change to reduce regulatory burden. Comments to the Stark Law RFI are due August 24.  We previously reported on the Stark Law RFI here.

In his testimony, Hargan stated that HHS is also looking at the AKS and its intersection with the Stark Law based on feedback from providers who find it “very difficult if not impossible to understand” how to comply with both laws.  Hargan described a four-agency task force that is working together to examine obstacles to coordinate care related to the Stark Law, the AKS, the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA)  and rules under 42 CFR Part 2 related to opioid and substance abuse disorder treatment.  This task force is composed of CMS, the HHS Office of Inspector General (OIG), the HHS Office of Civil Rights, and the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) to “coordinate amongst themselves to facilitate a coordinated care system” to “reduce duplication, overlap and contradictions” in regulations and “ensure regulatory requirements are aligned.”  As part of this effort, Hargan indicated that HHS would soon issue an RFI on AKS reforms as part of the Sprint.

HHS has already begun exploring changes to the AKS regarding drug pricing.  On July 18, 2018, OIG sent a proposed rule to the Office of Management and Budget entitled “Removal Of Safe Harbor Protection for Rebates to Plans or PBMs Involving Prescription Pharmaceuticals and Creation of New Safe Harbor Protection.”  While the text of the proposed rule is not available at this time, the rule is expected to propose revisions to the AKS discount safe harbor to scale back or exclude rebates from drug manufacturers.



CMS Seeks Comments on Stark Law Reforms Needed to Reduce Obstacles to Innovation

By , , , , , and on Jul 3, 2018
Posted In

On June 25, 2018, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) published a request for information, seeking input from the public on how to address any undue regulatory impact and burden of the physician self-referral law (Stark Law) on value-based and other coordinated care arrangements designed to improve quality and lower cost. While the overall focus of CMS’s request for information is on the Stark Law’s actual or perceived barriers to innovation, the request also gives the health care industry a unique opportunity to comment on and request revisions or clarifications for any significant Stark Law provision, including the provisions regarding fair market value, volume or value, and commercial reasonableness, as well as the Stark “group practice” definition.

As part of its focus to shift from a fee-for-service to a value-based health care delivery system, the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) launched a “Regulatory Sprint to Coordinated Care,” which is focused on identifying regulatory barriers to coordinated care. CMS identified aspects of the Stark Law that may create obstacles to participation in integrated delivery models, alternative payment models, and other arrangements incentivizing improvements in outcomes and reductions in costs, and is seeking input on revisions or additions to exceptions to the Stark Law.

The Stark Law is largely indifferent to the good faith intentions of health systems to integrate and enter into coordinated care arrangements with physicians, and continues to impose on health systems burdens of proof that the arrangements comply with ambiguous standards like fair market value, volume or value and commercial reasonableness. While financial transactions incident to CMS’s innovative care delivery and payment initiatives, such as accountable care organizations (ACOs), medical homes and bundled payment arrangements can be protected by certain fraud and abuse/Stark Law waivers, there are other common transactions and arrangements with physicians still operating in a fee-for-service environment (such as practice acquisitions, employment, “gainsharing,” service line co-management, pay-for-quality and non-ACO clinically integrated networks) that are not protected by the waivers. CMS’s request for information provides a welcome opportunity for the health care industry to educate CMS on the obstacles the Stark Law presents for innovative coordinated care arrangements with physicians.

In its request, CMS posed 20 specific requests for information on novel financial arrangements and alternative payment models, the applicability of current Stark Law exceptions to such arrangements, and what additional exceptions or revisions to the Stark Law are necessary to protect coordinated care arrangements from Stark Law liability. These requests, however, are so far ranging that they effectively invite comments on just about any Stark Law provision that a stakeholder believes warrants revision or clarification.

Comments are due by 5 pm EDT on August 24, 2018. If you would like assistance in preparing comments, please contact one of the authors or your regular McDermott lawyer.



DOJ Settlement with Home Health Providers Underscores Strategic Considerations for Self-Disclosure

By on Oct 23, 2017
Posted In , , , ,

Eventually, any health care organization with an effective compliance program is very likely to discover an issue that raises potential liability and requires disclosure to a government entity. While we largely discuss False Claims Act (FCA) litigation and defense issues on this blog, a complementary issue is how to address matters that raise potential liability risks for an organization proactively.

On August 11, 2017, a group of affiliated home health providers in Tennessee (referred to collectively as “Home Health Providers”) entered into an FCA settlement agreement with the US Department of Justice (DOJ) and the US Department of Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General (OIG) for $1.8 million to resolve self-disclosed, potential violations of the Stark Law, the Federal Anti-Kickback Statute, and a failure to meet certain Medicare coverage and payment requirements for home health services. This settlement agreement underscores the strategic considerations that providers must weigh as they face self-disclosing potential violations to the US government. (more…)



Physician Compensation Scrutiny Continues in Recent FCA Settlement

By and on Jun 16, 2017
Posted In , , ,

A hospital system in Missouri recently agreed to settle with the US Department of Justice (DOJ) for $34 million to resolve claims related to alleged violations of the Stark Law. On May 18, 2017, DOJ announced a settlement agreement with Mercy Hospital Springfield (Hospital) and its affiliate, Mercy Clinic Springfield Communities (Clinic). The Hospital and Clinic are both located in Springfield, Missouri. The relator’s complaint was filed in the Western District of Missouri’s Southern Division on June 30, 2015.

The complaint’s allegations center on compensation arrangements with physicians who provided services in an infusion center. According to the complaint, until 2009 the infusion center was operated as part of the Clinic, and the physicians who practiced at the infusion center shared in its profits under a collection compensation model. In 2009, ownership of the infusion center was transferred to Mercy Hospital so that it could participate in the 340B drug pricing program, substantially reducing the cost of chemotherapy drugs. The complaint alleges that the physicians “expressed concern about losing a substantial portion of the income they had received under the collection compensation model as a result of the loss of ownership of the Infusion Center.” In response, the Hospital allegedly assured them that they would be “made whole” for any such losses. While it doesn’t provide precise details, the complaint alleges that the Hospital addressed the shortfall by establishing a new work Relative Value Unit (wRVU) for drug administration in the infusion center, which now operated as part of the Hospital. The value of this new wRVU was allegedly calculated by “solving for” the amount of the physician’s loss and “working backwards from a desired level of overall compensation.” Physicians were able to earn the wRVU for the patients they referred to the infusion center. The complaint alleges that the drug administration wRVU rate was 500 percent of the comparable wRVU for in-clinic work. In its announcement of the settlement agreement, DOJ characterized the compensation arrangement as being “based in part on a formula that improperly took into account the value of [the physicians’] referrals of patients to the infusion center operated by [the Hospital].” (more…)



A Hospital’s Deserving Stark and AKS Victory—But At What Cost?

By , and on May 31, 2017
Posted In , , ,

This April, providers cheered when a federal district court in the Middle District of Florida found insufficient evidence to support a relator’s theory that a hospital had provided free parking to physicians, in violation of the Stark Law and Anti-Kickback Statute (AKS). In the Report and Recommendation for United States ex rel. Bingham v. BayCare Health Systems, 2017 WL 126597, M.D. Fla., No. 8:14-cv-73, Judge Steven D. Merryday of the Middle District of Florida endorsed magistrate judge Julie Sneed’s recommendation that Plaintiff Thomas Bingham’s Motion for Partial Summary Judgment be denied and that Defendant BayCare Health System’s Motion for Summary Judgment be granted. However, as we discussed in a previous FCA blog post regarding these allegations, this type of case encapsulates a worrying and costly trend where courts allow thinly pleaded relator claims in which the government opted not to intervene, to survive past the motion to dismiss stage into the discovery phase of the litigation.

Bingham is a serial relator who practices as a certified real estate appraiser in Tennessee and was unaffiliated with BayCare. In his latest attempt, Bingham alleged that BayCare Health System had violated the Stark Law and the AKS by providing affiliated physicians free parking, valet services and tax benefits to induce physicians to refer patients to the health system. (more…)



Is the Stark Law’s “Signed Writing” Requirement Material to Payment: One Federal Court Says Yes

By , , , and on May 10, 2017
Posted In , , ,

In a case of first impression, a federal court found that the federal physician self-referral law’s (Stark Law) requirement that financial arrangements with physicians be memorialized in a signed writing could be material to the government’s payment decision. This case raises troubling questions about applying the False Claims Act (FCA) to what many in the industry consider “technical” Stark issues, especially given the Supreme Court’s description of the materiality test as “demanding” and not satisfied by “minor or insubstantial” regulatory noncompliance.

United States ex rel. Tullio Emanuele v. Medicor Associates (Emanuele), in the US District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania, involves Medicor Associates, Inc., a private medical group practice (Medicor), and Hamot Medical Center’s (Hamot) exclusive provider of cardiology coverage. Tullio Emanuele, a qui tam relator and former physician member of Medicor, alleged that Hamot, Medicor, and four of Medicor’s shareholder-employee cardiologists (the Physicians) violated the FCA and Stark Law because Hamot’s multiple medical director compensation arrangements with Medicor failed to satisfy the signed writing requirement in the Stark Law’s personal services or fair market value exceptions during various periods of time. The US Department of Justice declined to intervene in the case, but filed a statement of interest in the summary judgment stage supporting the relator’s position. (more…)



CMS Reissues Stark Rules Restricting Certain Unit-based Rental Rate Arrangements and Issues Two Stark Updates

By and on Nov 16, 2016
Posted In ,

On November 15, 2016, as part of its 2017 Medicare Physician Fee Schedule update, the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services reissued its prohibition on certain unit-based rental arrangements with referring physicians, adopted updates to the list of CPT/HCPCS codes defining certain of the Stark Law’s designated health services and implemented a minor technical change to its instructions for submitting a request for an Stark advisory opinion. These revisions can be found at 81 Fed. Reg. 80170, 80524-36.

Read the full article.



Old Dog, New Tricks: Fraud and Abuse in the Age of Payment Reform

By and on Nov 1, 2016
Posted In , ,

The good, reassuring news about that “old dog” fraud and abuse as it enters an age of payment reform is that criminal liability for fraud still requires a specific intent to defraud the federal health care programs, anti-kickback liability still requires actual knowledge of at least the wrongfulness, if not the illegality, of the financial transaction with a referral source, and civil False Claims Act liability for Stark Law violations still requires actual knowledge, a reckless disregard for, or deliberate ignorance of the Stark Law violation. This should mean that good faith and diligent efforts to comply with law, including seeking and following legal counsel, still go a long way in managing an organization’s and individual executive’s risk under the fraud and abuse laws. The bad, unsettling news about fraud and abuse in an age of payment reform, however, is that (1) anxiety about reform and stagnating and declining physician incomes are propelling a spike in transactions between health systems and physicians at a time when qui tam plaintiffs and the law firms that represent them are aggressively challenging the legitimacy and common structures for these transactions; and (2) the Stark Law is largely indifferent to the good faith intentions of health systems to integrate and enter into coordinated care arrangements with physicians, and continues to impose on health systems heavy burdens of proof that the arrangements comply with ambiguous standards like fair market value, volume or value and commercial reasonableness. While financial transactions incident to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services’ (CMS) innovative care delivery and payment initiatives, such as accountable care organizations (ACOs), medical homes and bundled payment arrangements can be protected by the fraud and abuse/Stark waivers discussed in Part B below, there are many other common transactions and arrangements with physicians still operating in a fee-for-service environment  (such as practice acquisitions, employment, “gainsharing,” service line co-management, pay-for-quality and non-ACO clinically integrated networks) that are not protected by the waivers. During this period of transition to transformation of the health delivery and payment system, the key areas of risk for health systems are their burdens of proof on the ‘big three” issues of:

  • Fair market value,
  • Volume or value, and
  • Commercial reasonableness.

Each is discussed separately below, and the industry practices for managing these risks. Please note that none of these practices are necessarily “best” or “normative” practices, but are what we have observed.

Read the full article here.



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