On November 1, 2018, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (“CMS”) filed the pre-publication version of the CY 2019 Physician Fee Schedule Final Rule (“2019 PFS Final Rule”). Within this massive publication, CMS finalized two regulatory changes affecting the exceptions at 42 CFR § 411.357 to the Physician Self-Referral Law (also known as the “Stark Law”) for compensation arrangements. The 2019 PFS Final Rule reconciles the regulations with the statutory changes made to the Stark Law enacted by the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2018 (“2018 BBA”) with respect to (1) how arrangements may fulfill the “writing” requirement under the compensation exception and (2) how arrangements that initially proceed without a signed agreement may still meet the signature requirement of an applicable exception. Parties to financial arrangements in effect on or after February 9, 2018 that implicate the Stark Law may rely upon these new modifications.

The Stark Law generally prohibits a physician from making a referral of designated health services (“DHS”) to an entity with which he or she (or an immediate family member) has a financial relationship. Section 411.357 details several excepted compensation arrangements carved out from the “financial relationship” definition for the purposes of the Stark Law. These exceptions include arrangements for the rental of office space and equipment, bona fide employment relationships, group practice arrangements with hospitals, certain fair-market-value compensation arrangements, among others.
Continue Reading 2019 Physician Fee Schedule Rule Modifies Stark Regulations to Reflect Statutory Changes