Intermountain Agrees to $25.5M Stark Settlement
Begging the question of where alignment ends and payola begins, Intermountain Healthcare, Salt Lake City, Utah, has agreed to pay the government $25.5 million to settle charges that it paid referral-based bonuses to physicians, illegal under the Stark laws.
According to a report in Modern Healthcare, the system self-disclosed the payments, based on the volume of referrals a physician generated, as well as other Stark violations involving office leases and compensation agreements between Intermountain and physicians in 2009 after the violations were uncovered by an internal review.
Cheryl Proval, Vice President, Executive Editor, Radiology Business
Cheryl began her career in journalism when Wite-Out was a relatively new technology. During the past 16 years, she has covered radiology and followed developments in healthcare policy. She holds a BA in History from the University of Delaware and likes nothing better than a good story, well told.