Legal Archives | FON Consulting

Leveraging Medical Savings Accounts for Integrative Health Products and Services

You possess a powerful tool to enhance your business and expand your influence and goodwill for the good of your patients and customers. It’s called a medical savings account. Are you leveraging this tax-deferred tool? I have always wondered why integrative healthcare practices and businesses aren’t savvier at promoting the economic attributes of health savings accounts (HSA) and flexible savings accounts (FSA) to their current, and prospective, patients and customers.

Fee-Splitting 101 for MDs and other Integrative Health Practitioners

By Michael H. Cohen, JD Is it fee-splitting to hire another medical doctor, chiropractor, acupuncturist, or other health care practitioner in your office and give them a “cut” of patient revenues? Fee-splitting, “Stark,” self-referral, and anti-kickback issues concern many health care practitioners who seek legal counsel from our law firm. Here’s one typical scenario: You’re an acupuncturist and you want to hire a second acupuncturist as an independent contractor. The patient pays

Legal Viewpoint: MDs Operating Web-Based Health and Wellness Businesses

By Michael H. Cohen, JD telemedicine laws: who operates the sites and provides content? are the visits to the site considered clinical encounters, or merely visits to receive general information and education? is personalized healthcare advice being given? will the physician be obligated to have medical licensure in the state of the patient, as well as the home state or originating site? is a restricted telemedicine license available? antikickback and

Beware of Medical Claims for COVID-19 and Natural Products: New Guidance from AANP

Worldwide, the age of COVID-19 has ushered in a plethora of medical claims concerning the use of natural products to prevent and/or treat the pathogen. Here in the U.S., the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has been clamping down on bad actors, and those well-intentioned but under-informed about the current, and sometimes opaque, rules of the road. Federal responses have been accelerated by a perniciously persistent pandemic that lacks an approved

Quality Counts: A Clinician’s Guide to Supplement Quality

Quality: It’s a Clinical Issue Dietary supplements have become an integral part of American life—and American healthcare. Despite the recession, the supplement industry has grown steadily at 5%-6% per year–twice the rate of OTC drugs. According to a 2011 report from the National Center for Health Statistics, more than half of all U.S. adults regularly take supplements. A 2016 survey sponsored by the Council for Responsible Nutrition, puts the figure

Are Physician Online Dietary Supplement Sales Legal?

By Michael H. Cohen, JD Are physician online dietary supplement sales, kickbacks or fee-splitting? The Challenge of Physician Online Dietary Supplement Sales Can physicians, chiropractors, acupuncturists, and other healthcare licensees create a legally defensible contractual arrangement with a dietary supplement manufacturer or distributor, in which the healthcare clinician receives a discount, rebate, or commission when referring a patient for online purchase of the manufacturer’s dietary supplements? Let’s take Singularity Supplements, a

Independent Contractor Physician—Kickback or Compensation?

ByMichael H. Cohen, JD If you’re a successful physician, chiropractor, acupuncturist, or other licensed healthcare provider, and you want to provide overflow patients to another practitioner you hire, is it a kickback if you pay that second practitioner as an independent contractor? Are payments to an independent contractor physician a kickback? Kickback Basics Let’s review some kickback basics, to start. Stark (or self-referral) arises when the physician refers patients to

Telemedicine Legal Series—Conclusion: Putting it All Together

By Michael H. Cohen In this Series:IntroductionPart 1: Practice IssuesPart 2: Licensing IssuesPart 3: e-PrescribingPart 4: Standard of Care IssuesPart 5: HIPAA IssuesPart 6: Mobile Medical AppsPart 7: Unlicensed Practice, Fee-Splitting, and other Legal HazardsConclusion A few years ago, telemedicine and telehealth burst on the scene, immediately challenging established legal frameworks built around brick-and-mortar practices. The novelty forced healthcare practitioners and companies—and the lawyers who represent them—to work through the holes

Telemedicine Legal Series—Part 7: Unlicensed Practice, Fee-Splitting, & Other Legal Hazards

By Michael H. Cohen In this Series:IntroductionPart 1: Practice IssuesPart 2: Licensing IssuesPart 3: e-PrescribingPart 4: Standard of Care IssuesPart 5: HIPAA IssuesPart 6: Mobile Medical AppsPart 7: Unlicensed Practice, Fee-Splitting, and other Legal HazardsConclusion While we’ve focused this series on legal issues that frequently arise in telemedicine and telehealth, there are sister legal issues involved when healthcare practitioners and healthcare tech companies get involved. These and other critical legal hazards

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