Change to the country's health care system will be smoother if current fraud and abuse laws are reformed to improve patient outcomes and reduce costs, according to a white paper released by the Healthcare Leadership Council.
The proposed revisions would more quickly take the nation's health care system from conventional fee-for-service care to value-based delivery and payment models, according to the paper written by Jane Hyatt Thorpe, JD and Elizabeth Gray, JD, MHA of George Washington University’s Milken Institute School of Public Health Department of Health Policy and Management.
"However, implementing these models within the confines of the current federal fraud and abuse framework is challenging," the white paper states. “The fear of potential liability due to the complexity of the legal framework potentially stifles innovation and impedes progress toward a value-based system.”
The paper recommends extending waivers to a federal anti-kickback statute and the Stark law, the physician self-referral law. It also calls for including exceptions to these laws to include donations and other monetary support for technology training, including cybersecurity.
