Senate Report Includes APTA Comments on Self Referral
APTA's comments to the Senate
Finance Committee's May 2012 request for input from health care stakeholders on
3 areas critical to Medicare and Medicaid reforms—program integrity, payments, and enforcement—have
been included in the committee's recently released report
titled "Opportunities to Curb Waste, Fraud and Abuse in Medicare and
Medicaid."
Specifically,
the Senate Finance Committee writes about eliminating self referral in 2
sections of the report. Under the Beneficiary Protection section, the committee
notes "concern that over-broad application of the Stark law exception for
physician in-office ancillary services compromises patient care by
incentivizing overutilization." The committee references "increasing
enforcement of existing laws, such as the Stark law" under the area titled
Enforcement.
More
than 160 stakeholders in the health care community submitted comments to the
Senate Finance Committee's request. During the 113th Congress, 6 Senators plan to work
with key committees of jurisdiction, the Government Accountability Office, the
Department of Health and Human Services Office of the Inspector General, and
interested stakeholders to develop a more detailed list of administrative
recommendations and potential legislative actions.
APTA's
comments can be found on the association's Self Referral webpage.