CMS Changes Protocols for Stark Law Self-Disclosures
May 1, 2023 2 minutes read
By Greg Freeman
CMS recently announced updates to its voluntary self-referral disclosure protocol (SRDP), including changes made to streamline SRDP submissions.
Healthcare entities and physicians can self-report actual or potential violations of the Stark Law using the voluntary SRDP process. The revised SRDP process makes three key changes to reduce burdens on self-disclosing providers, says Timothy J. Fry, JD, partner with McGuireWoods in Chicago.
The changes allow providers to use a single Group Practice Information Form to report noncompliance with the Stark Law’s group practice definition, Fry says. Previously, providers had to complete separate forms for each individual physician in a group with a prohibited referral.
The revisions also allow the submission of a single Physician Information Form to disclose multiple compensation arrangements with different physicians, and the electronic submission of an entire SRDP report. Previously, a hard copy of the signed certification statement was required.
The changes do not affect day-to-day operations regarding Stark, Fry says, but they could significantly change whether self-reporting is necessary.
“This didn’t give any more grace to folks in terms of complying with the Stark law. It will impact providers if they faulted on the Stark law,” Fry says. “This is good news for them.”
For example, if a physician group realizes a compensation was not paid in accordance with the regulatory structure, they may decide to self-disclose their conduct, arguing it was not intentional.
“It should mean that for a group of 10 physicians, instead of submitting 100 pages to CMS, they’re going to end up submitting 15 to 20, tops, with a chart laying out who’s been involved,” Fry explains. “It’s just going to have a much smaller people paperwork footprint, if they decide to self-disclose.”
The changes should benefit CMS as well, Fry says. CMS probably has received more SRDP forms that it ever anticipated, and each one takes time to assess. Also, the new process can sharply reduce the legal expenses necessary to draft the documents. Recently, Fry facilitated a self-disclosure for an ophthalmology group with 30 physician partners, and self-disclosure was the same for each. The SRDP template called for filling out six pages for each of those 30 partners.
After the initial draft, the documents can be changed to include each partner’s name and other information, but each one still has to be checked carefully.
“You don’t want to submit mistakes to the government, so you go through line by line, and your client goes through 30 of these things line by line to make sure there were no copy-and-paste errors,” Fry explains. “Then, of course, you submit it to the government, and the government has to read those 30 documents line by line to see if maybe Dr. Smith has something slightly different than Dr. Jones. Now, we’re doing one document that we are filling out, and then we’re going to submit a chart.”
REFERENCE
- Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. Waivers of sanctions under the Physician Self-Referral Law. Page last modified March 2, 2023.
SOURCE
- Timothy J. Fry, JD, Partner, McGuireWoods, Chicago. Phone: (312) 698-4596. Email: [email protected].
CMS recently announced updates to its voluntary self-referral disclosure protocol, including changes made to streamline submissions. The revised process makes three key changes to reduce burdens on self-disclosing providers.
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