Marketing to Medicare or Medicaid Beneficiaries - What You Can and Cannot Do

The Anti-Kickback Statute prohibits so much that healthcare organizations have repeatedly broken it while doing marketing that would be routine in other industries. This 60-minute webinar on marketing to Medicare or Medicaid beneficiaries explains what you can and cannot do.

You'll review the Federal Anti-Kickback Statute: what it prohibits, its penalties, scope, exceptions and safe harbors. The session explains how the Medicare and Medicaid Patient and Program Protection Act of 1987 changed the statute and its administration and added protections for covered entities, and touches on the Federal False Claims Act.

Because the statute and regulations only tell part of the story, the program also reviews OIG guidance and advisory opinions on marketing, case law interpreting the AKS, and recommendations for running marketing activities compliantly.

• Explain what the Federal Anti-Kickback Statute prohibits and its penalties
• Identify the safe harbors and exceptions that apply to marketing
• Describe how the 1987 Medicare and Medicaid Patient and Program Protection Act affects marketing
• Interpret OIG guidance, advisory opinions and case law on marketing
• Understand the role of the Federal False Claims Act
• Plan marketing activities that stay compliant

• The Federal False Claims Act
• The Federal Anti-Kickback Statute: prohibitions, penalties, scope, exceptions and safe harbors
• How the OIG handles potential violations, including guidance and advisory opinions
• How the Medicare and Medicaid Patient and Program Protection Act of 1987 affects marketing
• How courts handle potential violations: case law interpreting the AKS
• Recommendations for conducting compliant marketing activities

Hospitals, physician practices, DME providers and other healthcare suppliers that market their services must take care not to violate the Anti-Kickback Statute. The penalties can be severe, including exclusion, civil monetary penalties and criminal prosecution.

This session suits hospital, physician practice, DME and ancillary service provider executives, physicians including dentists, podiatrists and chiropractors, and the attorneys who represent them.

• Hospital executives
• Physicians, including dentists, podiatrists and chiropractors
• Physician practice executives
• DME provider executives
• Ancillary service providers
• Ancillary service provider executives. And 
• Attorneys representing any of the above.

William Mack Copeland, MS, JD, PhD, LFACHE, practices health care law in Cincinnati at the firm of Copeland Law, LLC, where he is president and CEO. He is also president of Executive & Managerial Development Group, a consulting entity providing compliance and other fraud and abuse related services. A graduate of Northern Kentucky University Salmon P. Chase College of Law, Bill is a frequent author and speaker on health law topics. He is a member of the American Health Lawyers Association, American, Ohio and Cincinnati Bar Associations. A former hospital chief executive officer, he is a life fellow in the American College of Healthcare Executives. He was awarded the American College of Health Care Executives Senior-Level Healthcare Executive Regent’s Award in 2007.