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Pathology/Lab Coding Alert

Compliance:

Check Out This Stark 'Physician Self-Referral Law' Update

Published on Fri May 04, 2012

Exceptions only apply in specific scenarios.If anything keeps pathologists with ownership positions in a laboratory on their toes, it's the Stark Law. This group of strict regulations that prohibit physician self-referrals has been through several thorough sets of updates, and even then, not all the loose ends have been tied up.Here's a refresher: For Medicare cases (and potentially other payers on the state level), Stark prohibits physicians from making a referral to a "designated health service" (DHS) in which the physician or a direct family member of the physician has a financial relationship -- unless the DHS falls under one of Stark's many exceptions. A DHS can be anything from rehabilitation therapy services to imaging services or DME.Update with OIG's Latest When it comes to Stark, there's already a lot of information to take in. But to keep you up-to-date, we've broken down the most important information that the OIG offered [...]
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