Stark and Anti-kickback (Part 1): Self-Referral and Fee-Splitting

Hello. I’m Michael H. Cohen. I’m a healthcare and FDA attorney based out of Los Angeles, California.

Today, I’m going to talk about Stark and Anti-kickback. There are over 30 different exceptions to Stark, and this is because despite the concern about fraud and abuse, the government has decided that many types of arrangements can be beneficial. There’s a legitimate economic driver that’s actually good for the economy, it’s good for practice, and so they’re going to allow these different exceptions of referrals received. If you don’t meet every prong of the exception, it looks like it’s a prohibited referral, and that it’s really being made in order to induce referrals.

Now, I mentioned also that even if you go through the federal analysis, you also have to go through a state analysis, and every state has different laws. So, for example in California, the Anti-kickback or fee-splitting statute is business and professions code section 650.