Thomson Reuters Westlaw Publishes Kelly Cleary Article on Post-Pandemic Stark Law
Contact:
Akin Gump health care and life sciences partner Kelly Cleary has written the article “The Stark Law, post-pandemic,” which was published by Thomson Reuters Westlaw. The article examines the blanket waivers that were made to the Stark Law amid the COVID-19 pandemic. It also addresses some expected moves by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to “better serve patients and remove some of the compliance risk for those interested in taking advantage of the new flexibilities.”
Cleary begins with a look at the pandemic-related Stark Law waivers that were issued to block any sanctions from being imposed. She writes that the waivers have allowed “hospitals and other providers to support the physician community, and vice versa, and allowed the reshaping of financial relationships in ways that might otherwise have opened the door to major liability.”
The article then turns to what the Stark Law and Anti-Kickback Statute might look like post-pandemic. Cleary writes that regulatory reforms were already under way at the beginning of the year to modernize both of them, “which were acting as barriers to physicians and health care institutions finding new and economical ways to work together to better coordinate care for patients.”
To read the article in its entirety, please click here.
