The Stark law in healthcare is a set of federal laws which prohibit physicians and doctors from referring their patients to certain entities when they have a financial relationship with those entities.
The Stark law in healthcare is also known as the Physician Self Referral law.
The Stark laws purpose in healthcare is to prevent improper referrals which can harm patients and federal healthcare programs.
The way the Stark law applies is that it prohibits physicians from referring Medicaid or Medicare patients to entities for designated health services.
The Stark Law also prohibits entities from filing claims with Medicare for improperly referred DHS.
And the stark law also applies to physicians and their immediate family members.
The penalties for violating the stark law in healthcare is denial of payment, refund of monies that are received by facilities and physicians, exclusion from Medicare and or state healthcare programs and civil penalties.
The exceptions to the stark law are preventative screening tests, vaccines and immunizations which meet certain frequency limits.
Penalties for violating the stark law can also be severe and often result in multi million dollar claims.
And stark law violations can be raised in civil false claims suits that are brought by whistleblowers.
An example of a stark law violation would be a hospital that paid doctors money to refer cardiac patients to their hospital.
Also similar to that example it's also a violation of stark law for any laboratory or outpatient clinic to pay hospitals to refer any patients to them.