Navigating the Thicket: Practical and Ethical Challenges in Advising Clients on Thorny Stark Law Issues

Travis Lloyd and Dan Murphy will speak at the September 2015 meeting of the Nashville Council of Healthcare Attorneys. The purpose of this one-hour presentation is to examine several difficult issues with respect to the federal physician self-referral prohibition commonly known as the “Stark Law” and to highlight some of the key ethical considerations that counsel must account for in advising clients on these Stark Law issues and other healthcare fraud and abuse issues.  The presentation will review several recent Stark Law developments, including recent court decisions and a proposed rulemaking. The presentation will analyze a handful of nagging questions, including whether the Stark Law applies to Medicaid claims, the meaning of the Stark Law’s “volume or value” standard, and how to proceed with respect to issues that the recent proposed rule may resolve.  The presentation will then review how certain legal ethics rules apply in the context of advising on difficult healthcare fraud and abuse issues, including discussion of counsel’s responsibility to conduct due diligence and dealing with ambiguous legal questions.