Fair Market Value Services

The intermingling array of laws and regulations governing hospital/physician relationships – most notably the Anti-Kickback Statute, the Stark self-referral prohibitions, and the IRS private inurement prohibitions -- have had the impact of calling into question almost any kind of hospital/physician financial arrangement. Hospital administrators and their legal counsel around the country tangle with these issues, and sometime each other, on a regular basis to ensure that payments to physicians meet these complex federal criteria. Although administrators rely on counsel to lead development of these arrangements, fair market value (FMV) considerations often require detailed financial analyses that fall outside of the legal realm of expertise.  Therefore, it is becoming a common industry practice for legal counsel to seek outside expert opinions from consultants on these increasingly complex arrangements.

ECG has assisted numerous hospitals and health systems in overcoming these complex challenges. Our experience with hospital/physician financial arrangements, combined with our ability to effectively complete customized surveys and analyses, provides us with the knowledge and tools to assist hospitals and physicians in ensuring that they meet FMV principles. Perhaps most importantly, the objective view we take in analyzing these arrangements may prevent you from going down a road that should not be traveled.

Services that have benefited our clients include:

• Development and assessment of hospital/physician call coverage arrangements.
• FMV assessment of financial arrangements between hospitals and hospital-based specialists (e.g., anesthesiology, radiology, pathology, emergency medicine, hospitalist medicine).
• FMV assessment of hospital/physician joint venture and leasing arrangements.
• Evaluation of proposed medical directorship payments.