Physician Self-Referral Regulations Proposed Rule Offers an Easier Path to Value-Based Reimbursement

From CMS: “On October 9, 2019, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) issued a proposed rule to modernize and clarify the regulations that interpret the Medicare physician self-referral law (often called the “Stark Law”), which has not been significantly updated since it was enacted in 1989. The proposed rule supports the CMS “Patients over Paperwork” initiative by reducing unnecessary regulatory burden on physicians and other healthcare providers while reinforcing the Stark Law’s goal of protecting patients from unnecessary services and being steered to less convenient, lower quality, or more expensive services because of a physician’s financial self-interest. Through the Patients over Paperwork initiative, the proposed rule opens additional avenues for physicians and other healthcare providers to coordinate the care of the patients they serve – allowing providers across different healthcare settings to work together to ensure patients receive the highest quality of care. In addition, as part of the Regulatory Sprint to Coordinated Care, CMS worked closely with the Department of Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General in developing proposals to advance the transition to a value-based healthcare delivery and payment system that improves the coordination of care among physicians and other healthcare providers in both the Federal and commercial sectors.”

“The proposed rule would create new, permanent exceptions to the Stark Law for value-based arrangements. Industry stakeholders have informed us that, because the consequences of noncompliance with the Stark Law are so dire, physicians and other healthcare providers may be discouraged from entering into innovative arrangements that would improve quality outcomes, produce health system efficiencies, and lower costs (or slow their rate of growth). The proposed rule would unleash innovation by permitting physicians and other healthcare providers to design and enter into value-based arrangements without fear that legitimate activities to coordinate and improve the quality of care for patients and lower costs would violate the Stark Law. The exceptions would apply regardless of whether the arrangement relates to care furnished to people with Medicare or other patients.”

Click here to read the fact sheet on this proposal from CMS.