In comments submitted to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), the American Hospital Association (AHA) has raised concerns regarding how the Stark Law self-referral rules will interact with the proposed bundled payment program for joint replacements, according to FierceHealthFinance.
Unlike the American Health Care Association (AHCA), the AHA threw its support behind the initiative, but requested that CMS waive self-referral laws in lieu of safe harbor. The organization reasoned that these new payment models rely on "the close integration of a variety of healthcare providers" which makes elements of the federal Anti-Kickback Statute, like the self-referral law, incompatible with bundled payment models. Article