Your Web site can bring trouble with fraud laws
Be cautious, lawyers advise
If you use the Internet to communicate with patients or market your practice, beware. Any computer links you provide to other sites — especially facilities you refer patients to — can get you in regulatory hot water with the fraud police. The same concern also applies when other providers and health care sites list you as a link on their Web pages.
Since the use of the Internet by providers is still relatively new, there is little case law and formal regulatory policy on the matter. However, the Office of the Inspector General is looking into the situation and hopes to issue an advisory on the topic sometime within the next year.
"This is a totally new area where no one has a definite take on the topic yet," notes Eric S. Tower, a lawyer with Mintz Levin Cohn Ferris Glovsky and Pope in Washington, DC.
Until that happens, experts are advising physicians to err on the side of caution when inserting links to hospitals and other providers that refer patients on their Web sites.
Avoiding anti-kickback laws
Under current case law, merely providing links to organizations outside the health care industry generally does not create liability risks. However, in the health care industry, creating financial relationships among health care providers through arrangements such as computer links may trigger federal anti-kickback law and Stark investigations, advise legal eagles.
For instance, when a hospital-owned site provides a link to a physician at no cost to the doctor, some might argue this is compensation going to the physician in the form of free advertising, which violates anti-kickback rules.
One way for doctors to avoid running afoul of the law is to pay fair market value for any service they receive, including Web links.
"Any physician offered free Web sites needs to consider the proposal in light of the fraud and abuse laws," advises Bruce Fried, chair of the health law group at Shaw Pittman law firm, also in Washington, DC.
"Is there a quid pro quo? Is there some sort of referral expectation? These plus all the other thoughts that physicians go through when looking at their business relationships need to apply to Internet relationships," says Fried.
Provide unbiased information
For instance, besides links to other providers, physicians should also consider the potential impact of hyperlinks to pharmaceutical companies or other health care product makers.
The lines have not been clearly drawn yet, but "distinctions are going to have to be made between sponsorship fees, advertising fees, and various forms of click-through arrangements," notes Mark Lutes, an attorney in the Washington, DC, office of Epstein Becker & Green.
Tip: If you have a Web site, make sure to include links to hospitals and other provider organizations you are not affiliated with to eliminate any potential allegations that the practice is failing to provide a full range of unbiased information.
You have reached your article limit for the month. Subscribe now to access this article plus other member-only content.
- Award-winning Medical Content
- Latest Advances & Development in Medicine
- Unbiased Content