For some time, we have been reporting on issues involving federal government scrutiny of physician-owned distributors (“PODs”). From our blog post here on the Department of Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General’s (“OIG”) issuance of the March 2013 OIG Special Fraud Alert (“Special Fraud Alert”), to our post here on the Reliance Medical Systems challenge to the Fraud Alert, as well as here – the controversy over PODs has continued. This month the Senate Finance Committee issued a comprehensive report entitled Physician Owned Distributorships: An Update on Key Issues and Areas of Congressional Concern (“Report”). The Committee continue to be highly critical of the entire POD industry and its surgeon participants, and it stressed not only expanded guidelines in this area, but also increased and expanded investigative and enforcement activity by the OIG and DOJ.
To read more about the POD update, including key take-aways from the Report, read our Client Alert here.