Despite the many years since enactment, counseling health care clients on the broad and complex federal physician self-referral law, commonly called the Stark Law, will become increasingly difficult. Although originally enacted in 1989 to create “bright line” to demark improper physician self-referred laboratory services, and expanded in 1993 to cover a wide range of “designated health services” reimbursable under Medicare, the contours of the Stark Law continue to evolve and new uncertainties emerge.
The significant damages that can result from a Stark Law violation — most particularly the prospect under the False Claims Act for recovery of three times the Medicare reimbursement paid as a result of a prohibited referral — has caused the Stark Law to attract increasing attention from U.S. Attorneys offices and the private qui tam relator bar.
In his article “Stark Law Developments Will Challenge Health Care Attorneys,” published in The Legal Intelligencer, Reed Smith Partner Karl Thallner discusses recent developments demonstrating the difficulties in counseling health care clients on the application of the Stark Law, as well as with selecting a course of action when a Stark Law violation has been discovered.