Alerts3.24.26
OIG Provides Additional Guidance on Physician Transfers of ASC Ownership Interests in Estate Planning Contexts
Highlights
- According to the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Office of Inspector General (OIG)’s Advisory Opinion No. 26-04, transactions arranged as part of bona fide estate planning with supporting documentation and certifications may be deemed by the OIG to be sufficiently low risk of fraud and abuse even though not every element of a safe harbor is satisfied.
- If properly structured, OIG will not prosecute arrangements where non-physician investor and future physician investors become owners as part of bona fide estate planning, provided that the investor is not a referral source and that the purchases are for fair market value.
- Key risk mitigation factors include patient disclosure of investor status; terms unrelated to referral volume; distributions proportional to investments; fair market value (FMV) purchase pricing; and in this instance, certification supporting the estate planning as bona vide.
The HHS-OIG recently released Advisory Opinion No. 26-04, which provides additional guidance regarding physician transfers of ownership interests in a Medicare-certified ambulatory surgical center and the applicability of the safe harbor regulations for single-specialty and multi-specialty set forth in 42 C.F.R. § 1001.952(r)(2) and (r)(3).
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