Can’t we just joint venture our echo/nuclear lab with the hospital and split the increase in the Medicare reimbursement that will result from the lab’s being operated as a hospital-based service?
The answer to the question of whether a facility can be operated as a joint venture and still qualify for hospital-based status depends on the location of the facility, the extent to which you are willing to allow the hospital to exercise control over the organization and operation of the lab, and a number of other factors. More specifically, in order for services to be billed as hospital outpatient services, the services must be provided in compliance with Medicare’s “provider-based status” regulations, and these regulations preclude a joint venture that is not located on the hospital’s campus from qualifying for hospital-based status. In addition, a number of other requirements—many of which require relatively tight control of the facility by the hospital—must be met. In addition, in areas that do not qualify as “rural”, the federal physician self-referral law (the ” Stark law”) precludes a physician from having a direct or indirect ownership interest in an echocardiography or nuclea
Related Questions
- How much control would our practice have over the clinical operation of the cath lab if we joint venture with NCP?
- Is an outpatient cath lab or hospital-based CV joint venture the appropriate facility for our physician group?
- What are the formalities a joint venture company has to do to increase the foreign equity holding?
