Published in POLITICO Stark Law bill: Sens. Rob Portman and Michael Bennet introduced a bill Wednesday to adapt Medicare’s anti-kickback laws. The regulations are intended to crack down on physician conflicts of interest in making referrals and purchasing services, but critics believe the laws need reform in a value-based payment era. Portman and Bennet’s bill, […]
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Modernizing the Stark Law
The Digestive Health Physician Association supports the bipartisan Medicare Care Coordination Improvement Act of 2019 (H.R 2282, S. 966), which promotes care coordination and will enable physicians to participate more fully in the value-based payment models incentivized by the bipartisan Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act of 2015 (MACRA).
The legislation has the full support of 27 physician organizations representing more than 500,000 physicians who care for millions of Medicare patients.
The Medicare Care Coordination Improvement Act would modernize the outdated “Stark” self-referral law that poses barriers to care coordination. Congress recognized the Stark Law hinders care coordination when it authorized the Secretary at the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to waive the self-referral and anti-kickback prohibitions for Accountable Care Organizations. MACRA’s full potential can only be achieved by modernizing this law for physician-led alternative payment models (APMs) as well.
The bill will provide CMS with the regulatory authority to create exceptions under the Stark Law for APMs and to remove barriers in the current law to the development and operation of such arrangements.
DHPA Supports New Legislation to Improve Care Coordination Under Federal Physician Self-Referral Law
The Medicare Care Coordination Improvement Act would remove barriers to physician practice participation in APMs. Specifically, it would provide CMS the same authority to waive restrictions in the Stark Law and Anti-Kickback Statute for physicians seeking to develop and operate APMs as was provided to Accountable Care Organizations in the Affordable Care Act. It would allow physician practices to incentivize practitioners to provide high quality care while alternative payment models are under development and in operation.
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DHPA Submits Stark Law Modernization Comments in Response to Medicare Red Tape Relief Project
DHPA has submitted comments on the importance of modernizing the federal physician self-referral law (Stark Law) to the U.S. House Ways and Means Health Subcommittee’s Medicare Red Tape Relief Project, an initiative aimed at “delivering relief from the regulations and mandates that impede innovation, drive up costs, and ultimately stand in the way of delivering […]
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U.S. Senator Debbie Stabenow visits Huron Gastroenterology
U.S. Senator Debbie Stabenow (D-MI) visited DHPA member, Huron Gastroenterology, and met with the group’s physicians regarding healthcare issues being debated in the U.S. Congress. DHPA Board member, Dr. Naresh Gunaratnam, who also serves as research director at Huron Gastro, and his colleagues discussed with Sen. Stabenow the importance of preserving the high quality, cost […]
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DHPA Comment Letter on MACRA Proposed Rule
DHPA today filed comments in response to CMS’s proposed rule implementing the Merit-Based Incentive Payment System (MIPS) and Incentives for Alternative Payment Models (APMs). This major proposed rule establishes new ground rules for physician payments under the MACRA legislation passed by Congress last year. MACRA represents a fundamental change in the way physicians are paid […]
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