McDermott Seeks Plan to Resolve Self-Disclosure Backlog

Rep. Jim McDermott (D-Wash.), ranking member on the House Ways and Means Health Subcommittee, has asked the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) to submit a written plan for revising its self-referral disclosure protocol, used by various health care providers to self-disclose actual or potential violations of the physician self-referral law. As the lead author of the provision in the Affordable Care Act establishing the protocol, McDermott, in an Aug. 13 letter to CMS Administrator Marilyn Tavenner, said the agency was taking several months to settle disclosures that have been submitted under the law, often called the Stark law. The letter calls on CMS to more promptly resolve disclosures made through the protocol. It also asks the agency to submit a detailed plan by Oct. 15 to address the backlog and to ensure that the protocol will function better in the future. McDermott said CMS has received nearly 300 submissions under the protocol since it was published in September 2010 but has settled fewer than 30. CMS received 18 submissions under the Stark self-referral disclosure protocol in the first three months of 2013 and expects roughly 100 submissions for the entire year, an agency official said March 21.