Office of Inspector General October 2014 – Federal Register Recent Federal Regulation Documents

This document announces an extension of the public comment period for the OIG Federal Register notice published on July 11, 2014 (79 FR 40114). The notice solicited input from the public on revising the criteria used by OIG in implementing its permissive exclusion authority under Section 1128(b)(7) of the Social Security Act. Due to a technical problem, the public may have been unable to submit comments at https://www.regulations.gov during the comment period. Accordingly, we are extending the comment period to ensure that the public has an opportunity to provide input.

This proposed rule would amend the safe harbors to the anti- kickback statute and the civil monetary penalty (CMP) rules under the authority of the Office of Inspector General (OIG). The proposed rule would add new safe harbors, some of which codify statutory changes set forth in the Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement, and Modernization Act of 2003 (MMA) and the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, Public Law 111-148, 124 Stat. 119 (2010), as amended by the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act of 2010, Public Law 111-152, 124 Stat. 1029 (2010) (ACA), and all of which would protect certain payment practices and business arrangements from criminal prosecution or civil sanctions under the anti-kickback statute. We also propose to codify revisions to the definition of ``remuneration,'' added by the Balanced Budget Act (BBA) of 1997 and ACA, and add a gainsharing CMP provision in our regulations.