Health Law

OIG Advisory Opinions Shed Light on Marketing Activities

By Todd Rodriguez

Two recent Advisory Opinions by the Office of Inspector General (OIG) shed some much needed light of the OIG's view of marketing by health care providers.  Last week the OIG published Advisory Opinions 10-23 and 10-24, both concerning a proposed arrangement between a sleep testing provider and a hospital.  The facts in both Opinions were very similar: the hospital contracted with a sleep testing company to provide certain sleep testing equipment and services.  Among other things, the sleep testing company would provide marketing services for the hospital's sleep center.  

In Opinion 10-23 the OIG concluded that the arrangement could potentially generate prohibited remuneration under the anti-kickback statute and that the OIG could potentially impose administrative sanctions if the parties proceeded with the arrangement.  In opinion 10-24, however, the OIG concluded that while the proposed arrangement could potentially generate prohibited remuneration under the anti-kickback statute if the requisite intent to induce or reward referrals of Federal health care program business were present, the OIG would not impose sanctions on the parties because the arrangement included sufficient safeguards against the risks if improper inducement.

In both proposed arrangements, the parties stipulated that the compensation to be paid to the sleep testing company was consistent with fair market value.  However, in Opinion 10-23, the compensation was on a per test basis (sleep company was paid each time a patient was tested) and in Opinion 10-24, the sleep company was paid a fixed amount regardless of the number of patients seen or tested.  Although Advisory Opinions may generally only be relied upon by the parties requesting them, these two contrasting opinions suggest that marketing as an element of an independent service agreement is not fatal to the arrangement under the kickback statute as long as the compensation is fixed in advance, does not fluctuate with the volume or value of services and is consistent with fair market value.

Full post as published by Physician Law on November 08, 2010 (boomark / email).