Slippery Stark Rules? Learn From The Mistakes Of Others

By Author: Jaun Paul
Total Articles: 53
Comment this article

There's a lot that your hospital can learn from the mistakes of others, especially those relating to slippery Stark rules.


Mid 2009 (June 26, 2009) saw OIG announcing a settlement with Memorial Hospital of Union County (MHUC) in Ohio for $31,202 for allegedly violating the Civil Monetary Penalties Law provisions on kickbacks and
physician self-referrals.


The facility itself disclosed a situation that according to OIG involved the provision of excess non-monetary compensation to physicians and the immediate family member of a physician who referred patients to MHUC.


One report read that the hospital found out that it had given ten physicians $3,100 in excess Stark-violating gifts between 2007 and 2008. As per the reports, the gifts included weather clocks and seminars.

...
... br /> But for non-monetary compensation, that allows you to give up to $355 worth of stuff to a doctor yearly, Stark has an exception. In MHUC's case, the value of the gifts offered to the docs that surpassed the $355/ each annual limit totaled over $3,000, and it ended up with a penalty that was ten times over the amount of that excess.


Wayne J. Miller, an attorney with the
Compliance Law Group in Thousand Oaks, CA points out that the government could have required MHUC to pay back the whole reimbursement for the doctors for the period of violation. Nevertheless, it's still an expensive hit for a minor violation, more precisely taking into account the staff and attorney time involved in resolving the matter. Miller says, The hospital decided to take this path in order to duck a possible qui tam claim that could have ultimately cost your pocket much more.


According to miller, the gift exception needs to be taken seriously. And the good tiding is that it's relatively easy to know if you are walking on thin ice.

We provide the latest developments of Compliance Law in health care and offers advanced Learning Opportunities about Stark rules for healthcare executives, hospitals and physicians.