Health Law Alert

2012: Issue 5

Website Coupons and Advertising from Health Care Providers Approved by OIG

By: Christopher P. Dean

The Office of Inspector General (OIG) issued a favorable advisory opinion to a company that proposed to provide Internet-based coupons and advertisements to health care providers. Advisory Opinion 12-02 [PDF] concluded that the proposed arrangement would not constitute grounds for the OIG to exercise its civil monetary penalty authority for illegal inducements to beneficiaries and that the OIG would not impose administrative sanctions pursuant to the federal antikickback statute.

CMS Extends Community Based Transition Program

By: Sarah E. Swank

Last year, CMS introduced the Community Based Care Transition Program (Program), the goals of which are to reduce hospital readmissions, test sustainable funding streams for care transition services, maintain or improve quality of care, and document measureable savings to the Medicare program. Under section 3026 of the Affordable Care Act, CMS was appropriated $500 million in total funding for the Program from 2011 to 2015. The original deadline to apply for program participation [PDF] was March 2012, but CMS recently extended the application period into the summer of 2012. The final deadline for rolling applications is now June 7, 2012.