On November 30 and December 2, 2020, the Department of Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General (OIG) published two final rules (available here: November 30 Final Rule and December 2 Final Rule) which modify the safe harbor regulations to the federal Anti-Kickback Statute (AKS) and codify a new exception to the Civil Monetary Penalty (CMP) Rules related to beneficiary inducements. Most of the changes are effective January 19, 2021.

Together with the new physician self-referral law (also known as Stark) regulations published by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services on December 2, 2020, these updates represent long-awaited changes to the federal fraud and abuse laws, and are part of the federal administration’s Regulatory Sprint to Coordinated Care (see our analysis of that final rule here).

Click here for our full article, which includes a detailed summary of the final rules.