Home Health & Hospice Week

In addition to no-pay RAPs, COVID-19 loan forgiveness and reporting, Patient-Driven Groupings Model updates and more taking effect this month, home health and hospice agencies also need to pay attention to Stark Law updates that go into effect on Jan. 19.

On that date, “health care organizations nationwide will need to start complying with new regulations aimed at modernizing and streamlining key regulations under the federal Stark Law,” counsels law firm Hall Render in online analysis.

Among a host of changes in the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services’ final rule on the topic is its revamp of the “big three” — fair market value, commercially reasonable, and volume or value standard. And the 191-page rule published in the Dec. 2, 2020 Federal Register gives providers more leeway to contract for value-based arrangements.

For example: “Profits from designated health services” such as home health “that are directly attributable to a physician’s participation in a value-based enterprise, as defined at § 411.351, may be distributed to the participating physician,” says the rule at https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/FR-2020-12-02/pdf/2020-26140.pdf.