Surgeon Sues Health System for ‘Forced Referrals’

An article in the April issue of Healthcare Risk Management, “Surgeon Sues Health System for ‘Forced Referrals’,” discussed a whistleblower lawsuit filed against a Florida health system. Rivkin Radler’s Geoffrey Kaiser was quoted in the article.

Jeff pointed out that if a surgeon is an employee of a health system, requiring him to refer his patients to the health system is not necessarily a violation of the federal Anti-Kickback Statute or the Stark law. The court in United States ex rel. Obert-Hong v. Advocate Health Care supported this position. “Outside the employee context, in a case involving an independent contractor, for example, the analysis would be different because the bona fide employee exceptions that exist in both statutes, and that protect such arrangements where the employee compensation formula is not directly based on referrals, would not apply,” Jeff cautioned.