Physicians See Challenges With Stark Law, Anti-Kickback Changes
The Trump administration signed off on changes to physician referral and anti-kickback rules last week. The changes aim to boost value-based care by making it easier for providers, suppliers and others to work together.
According to this Modern Healthcare article, "The final rules give providers more flexibility to take part in value-based arrangements and coordinate and manage patient care by reducing their potential liability and administrative work in exchange for taking on risk. Providers get to decide how much risk to accept, but they'll have to deal with some trade-offs."
Waller's Colbey Reagan told Modern Healthcare that the point of the changes is to get providers to take on more risk. As a result, many of the arrangements don't exist yet.
"You will see lots of new arrangements with myriad parties … in arrangements they previously thought were too risky," Colbey said. "I don't see any reason (the new rules) can't make an impact within the next 30 days." Providers could take advantage of relaxed standards for certain services right away.
But, there could be significant legal challenges to overcome in creating new value-based enterprises and a good deal of ambiguity to work through.