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.