OIG Advisory Opinion No. 16-12- provision of free services

The OIG has posted Advisory Opinion No. 16-12, which addresses a laboratory issue, but it has relevance to diagnostic radiologists’ relationships with referral sources, and the provision of free services to those referral sources.  The opinion relates to a laboratory’s proposal to provide services consisting of the labeling of test tubes and specimen collection containers at no cost to dialysis facilities. These services would be performed by personnel located in the lab’s own facilities, and no personnel of the lab would be stationed in the dialysis facilities.  The lab would retain sole discretion regarding the selection of which dialysis facilities would be offered the labeling services and such selection would be based upon whether offering such services would be necessary to obtain or retain the business of a particular dialysis facility. The OIG concludes that the Proposed Arrangement could potentially generate prohibited remuneration under the anti-kickback statute and that the OIG could potentially impose administrative sanctions in connection with the Proposed Arrangement (any definitive conclusion regarding the existence of an anti-kickback violation requires a determination of the parties’ intent, which beyond the scope of the advisory opinion process).   

Source: https://oig.hhs.gov/fraud/docs/advisoryopinions/2016/AdvOpn16-12.pdf