The American Hospital Association, Federation of American Hospitals and Association of American Medical Colleges are supporting revisions to a new exception to the physician self-referral law, also known as the Stark law, for incentive payment and shared-savings programs.
Shared savings programs, known as ‘gainsharing,’ allow hospitals and physicians to work together to improve quality and patient care and share in any savings from those collaborations. The hospital groups claim the current proposed exception is too limiting, costly, burdensome and complex to make it useful to providers, saying it stifles innovation. They recommend modifying the proposed exception to reduce burdensome mandates.
Read the joint gainsharing letter (pdf).
The same groups sent a three-page letter to HHS’ Inspector General Daniel Levinson urging him to withdraw the agency’s 1999 gainsharing opinion, which they consider obsolete and a barrier limiting physician hospital collaborations.
To read that letter, click here (pdf).
