Group says Stark rules unfair to for-profits

Though they haven't been implemented yet, the revised Stark rules which went into effect December 4, 2007 have come under fire from at least one powerful hospital group, which says they aren't fair. The Federation of American Hospitals says changes to the "stand in the shoes" doctrine--under which group practices are held responsible for any referral relationship between a physician and a hospital--would hit them too harshly. To date, academic medical centers and not-for-profit systems have been able to convince CMS that support payments to their affiliated physician groups were necessary, but for-profit hospitals haven't been given the same latitude. Now, FAH is asking CMS to expand the rule to address their needs, which they say are identical to the academic medical centers and not-for-profit hospitals. They have less than 12 months to convince CMS, which put implementation of the new rules on hold for a year last November [1].

To find out more about the issue:
- read this Modern Healthcare article [2] (reg. req.)

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