OIG Soliciting Recommendations on New Safe Harbors To The Anti-Kickback Statute; Stakeholder Comments on Developing Special Fraud Alerts
Each year the HHS Office of Inspector General (OIG) solicits recommendations for new or modified safe harbor provisions under the Anti-Kickback statute, as well as comments on developing Special Fraud Alerts. Comments to OIG’s Solicitation of New Safe Harbors and Special Fraud Alerts are due by March 2, 2015.
The Anti-Kickback statute makes it a criminal offense to “knowingly and willfully offer, pay, solicit, or receive any remuneration to induce or reward referrals of items or services reimbursable by a Federal health care program.” Remuneration under the statute includes the transfer of anything of value, directly or indirectly, overtly or covertly, in cash or in kind.
The statute has also been interpreted to cover any arrangement where even one purpose of the remuneration was to obtain money for the referral of services or to induce further referrals. The Officer of Inspector General (OIG) has recognized the fact that the law is “extremely broad” and has developed safe harbor provisions to “limit the reach of the statute somewhat by permitting certain non-abusive arrangements, while encouraging beneficial and innocuous arrangements.”
In fact, there are currently 25 regulatory safe harbors under . As you can see from the list, plenty of common arrangements could potentially raise questions under the far-reaching statute.
Safe Harbors to the Anti-Kickback Statute
Investment interests
Price reduction offered to health plans
...
Source: Policy and Medicine - Category: American Health Authors: Thomas Sullivan Source Type: blogs
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