Proposed Stark Law Revisions Expected Soon

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) expects to release proposed revisions to the federal physician self-referral prohibition (Stark Law) before Labor Day, according to Kim Brandt, CMS’s principal deputy administrator for operations. Brandt was speaking at an industry conference. Potential Stark Law changes were recently discussed here.

CMS had requested input from the public in June 2018 on the burdens of the Stark Law, which generally prohibits a physician from referring a patient for certain types of services to be performed by an entity in which the physician has an ownership or financial interest. CMS recognizes that the law may be impeding the healthcare industry’s ongoing shift from fee-for-service medicine to value-based care. Many industry observers believe that unaffiliated healthcare providers must be free to collaborate financially and to coordinate patient care with one another in order to reduce costs to the system as a whole.