Becker’s ASC Review cited the Health Law Advisor blog post, “Physicians Beware! Groups Providing DME, Prosthetic Devices, and Other Medical Supplies to Their Medicare Patients Risk Violating the Strict Liability Stark Law Since the Expiration of COVID-19 Public Health Emergency,” co-authored by Gary W. Herschman and Shannon DeBra, attorneys in the Health Care & Life Sciences practice, in “Physicians Could Be in Financial Danger with This Stark Law Change,” by Patsy Newitt.
Following is an excerpt:
Physician groups who provide certain medical equipment, devices and supplies to their Medicare patients could be in violation of Stark law following the end of the COVID-19 public health emergency, attorneys from law firm Epstein Becker & Green wrote in an Aug. 14 JDSupra article.
During the emergency, which ended May 11, CMS issued temporary waivers. One was to waive the location requirement of the in-office ancillary services exception, which allowed physician groups to provide home delivery for some equipment, including intermittent urinary catheters, to Medicare patients without Stark law sanctions.
With the end of the PHE, however, the waiver ended, meaning Medicare beneficiaries must come to the practice's office to pick up their durable medical equipment when they are furnished and billed by physicians.
Physician practices can still mail the equipment if the prescribing physician both personally enrolls as a Medicare durable medical equipment supplier and personally performs all the services related to the equipment. The authors of the article specified that they are not aware of any physician who meets both of these standards, however.
