http://www.fiercehealthcare.com/healthcare/7-ways-stark-and-anti-kickback-laws-hurt-care-coordination

Click to access barrierstocare-full.pdf

http://www.finance.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/Stark%20White%20Paper,%20SFC%20Majority%20Staff.pdf?utm_medium=nl&utm_source=internal

Anti-kickback and anti-fraud regulations, such as the Stark Law, have the unintended consequence of major barriers to care coordination, according to a new report from the American Hospital Association (AHA).

The passage last year of the Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act (MACRA) removed one regulatory barrier to care but called on legislative groups to make recommendations for removing other similar obstacles. The AHA report identifies seven barriers created by the Anti-Kickback Statute and Stark Law. These barriers, according to the report, obstruct:

• The sharing of electronic health records
• Incentives for efficiency and effective treatment
• Collaboration to ensure coordinated care at discharge
• Assistance for patients to keep themselves healthy after returning home
• Assistance with discharge planning
• Alignment of incentives in services of better outcomes
• Rewards for team-based care that incorporates non-physician clinicians

The report also calls for numerous legislative solutions to these obstacles. For example, Congress should develop “safe harbors” under the Anti-Kickback law, both to protect shared savings and incentive programs and to develop the assistance patients need to recover. Current rules on safe harbors and exceptions, the report states, “are not in sync with the collaborative models that reward value and outcomes.” Legislators should also refocus the Stark Law to align it with its original purpose of regulating compensation agreements, report authors write.

The report comes around the same time as a report from the Senate Finance Committee on ways to improve the Stark Law. The suggestions range from establishing new exceptions and waivers for risk revenue to loosening current restrictions on waivers. Others consulted for the report, however, argued that expanding exceptions would only further complicate the regulatory framework and repealing the law entirely would be a better option.