Over the years, the industry had become increasingly frustrated by the need to disclose highly technical Stark Law violations (e.g., a late signature) or violations based on arguably non-compliant arrangements involving small amounts of remuneration. While CMS addressed some of these issues in 2015, the 2020 rulemaking provides significant additional flexibility. Using a number of examples and hypotheticals, we discussed these modifications in-depth, with a particular focus on CMS’s new interpretation of when a financial relationship begins and ends (the so-called “period of disallowance”) and the new Stark Law exception for “limited remuneration.” 

Presentation materials 

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White paper

In December 2020, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) finalized its long-awaited changes to the agency’s regulations governing the federal physician self-referral law, commonly known as the Stark Law (Final Rule). The Final Rule represents the most significant Stark Law rulemaking in more than a decade. The Health Care Group at Dentons US presented a series of seven webinars, each with a companion white paper, addressing the principal components of the Final Rule. This is the second of these white papers, covering several important changes CMS made in an effort to reduce the universe of arrangements that, while not implicating any of the Stark Law’s principal policy objectives, nevertheless violate its referral and billing prohibitions.

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