CMS proposes to revise physician anti-kickback rules

Editor's Note

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) on October 9 announced proposed changes to how it enforces the Physician Self-Referral Law (ie, Stark Law), which penalizes physicians and other healthcare providers for referring patients to outside services they could stand to benefit from financially.

The proposed rule will provide new permanent exceptions to the Stark Law for physicians and other healthcare providers participating in value-based arrangements and providing coordinated care for patients, and the exceptions will provide new flexibility for arrangements, such as donations of cybersecurity technology.

The proposals also would ease the compliance burden for physicians and other healthcare providers across the industry, while maintaining strong safeguards to protect patients and programs from fraud and abuse.

Comments on the proposed rule will be accepted until December 31, 2019.