One Patient, Multiple Doctors: Provider Referral Laws Explained

Health-care providers that work together to treat patients holistically is the optimum way to make people healthier. But two laws and the severe penalties they carry for violators have long been cited as the reason providers can’t coordinate their care.

The Physician Self-Referral Law and Anti-Kickback Statute prohibit physician referrals and financial arrangements that favor one clinic over another. The laws aim to ensure there’s fair competition in the marketplace among health-care facilities.

Two Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) rules slated to take effect Jan. 19, however, have created new exceptions to and safe harbors from those laws. ...