An update of regulations that limit the ability of doctors to refer patients for care to sources in which those doctors have a financial interest will wait as long as another year, according to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services.
CMS had previously proposed regulations updating current guidelines, essentially easing them, but provider comment was so great – often, saying that the easing of the guidelines did not go far enough – that the agency decided to step back and review the situation.
In a public inspection version of a notice to be published in the Federal Register, CMS wrote that
We announced in the Spring 2020 Unified Agenda (June 30, 2020… that we would issue the final rule in August 2020. However, we are still working through the complexity of the issues raised by comments received on the proposed rule and therefore we are not able to meet the announced publication target date. This notice extends the timeline for publication of the final rule until August 31, 2021.
Learn more from the Healthcare Dive article “Trump admin delays final rule easing anti-kickback regs until next August” and from the display version of CMS’s Federal Register notice.