Andrew and Quynh are law clerks at the firm and their work is supervised by licensed attorneys. Their admission to – respectively – the Washington, D.C. and California bar is pending.

On October 4, 2021, the Department of Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General (OIG) issued a favorable advisory opinion on a proposal by a chiropractic clinic operator to extend an existing discount program to federal health plan beneficiaries.

The requesting clinics initially offered various discount programs to their privately insured or self-paid patients, but not to Federal health care program beneficiaries. Many healthcare providers are hesitant to give federal beneficiaries access to certain discount programs because of concern that doing so would run afoul Federal anti-kickback and beneficiary inducement statutes. Specifically, the concern is that if the beneficiaries receive discounts, clinics would provide patients with something of value—a discount on self-paid services—in exchange for the option to seek federally reimbursed services through a specific provider.

To address these concerns, the chiropractic clinic operator requested an advisory opinion from OIG on a new discount model that would extend discount programs to Federal health care program beneficiaries. While OIG found that the proposed discount program could result in prohibited compensation to patients, it also stated that it would not pursue an enforcement action based on the nature of the requesting clinics’ specific discount model.

Although only the requesting chiropractic clinic operator may rely on this opinion, OIG’s analysis implies that equalizing discount rates across federally reimbursable and non-reimbursable chiropractic services reduces legal risk under anti-kickback and beneficiary inducement statutes. Providers offering similar discount programs should take note to inform their compliance strategies.
Continue Reading HHS-OIG approves uniform chiropractic discount program for federal beneficiaries