Anyone in your practice could be soliciting kickbacks and your compensation arrangements could be in violation too. Those are two lessons learned from the first ever conviction for an EKRA violation committed by an 80-year-old office manager.

ERKA violation: A Kentucky woman faces up to 20 years in prison for soliciting kickbacks from a toxicology laboratory in exchange for urine drug testing referrals. Theresa. C. Merced, 80, pleaded guilty to one count of violating the Eliminating Kickbacks in Recovery Act (EKRA), among other charges.

Merced was the office manager of a substance abuse treatment clinic. She received a $4,000 check plus other inducements from the CEO of a toxicology lab. EKRA prohibits the solicitation or receipt of kickbacks in the exchange for the referral of urine drug testing services.

The provision added to prevent opioid addiction goes beyond the federal Anti-Kickback Statute (AKS). EKRA violations carry up to 10 years in prison and/or $200,000 in penalties per count. With this being the first conviction since the 2018 creation of the provision, in addition to AKS, you better pay attention to the following takeaways:

Lesson 1: EKRA created criminal penalties for an individual who solicits or receives any renumeration for referring a patient to a recovery home, clinical treatment facility, or laboratory or pays or offers renumeration (kickback, bribe, rebate) in exchange for an individual using services from those locations.

Lesson 2: Review your compensation arrangements for compliance with EKRA. Make sure that you don’t have any employee incentives that violate EKRA. Illegal incentives include determining or varying pay by:

• Number of individual referred to a particular recovery home, clinical treatment facility, or laboratory
• The number of tests or procedures performed
• The amount billed to or received from the health care benefit program from the patients referred to a particular recovery home, clinical treatment facility, or laboratory.

How can you protect yourself and your practice further? That’s where healthcare attorney, Joseph Wolfe, JD, can help. During his 60-minute online training, he’ll walk you through the upcoming Stark and Anti-Kickback rule changes.

Need More Help? Check Out These Compliace Resources