When your organization determines it must compensate a physician above your standard for fair market value, create a standardized process for reviewing such exceptional contracts. Stark doesn’t prohibit paying physicians above a certain threshold, but organizations must have justification for the rates. When developing a step-by-step process to address exceptions, have specific goals in mind. What criteria define a true exception? How do you enforce that definition? Who needs to sign off on exceptions? What happens to renewals? Most strong compliance programs require senior executives to sign off on exceptional agreements and many require board approval or at least review by an executive or finance committee of the board.
If you want to read more key physician contracting compliance tips, check out this article.