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OIG warns against selective free labeling services

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Ron Shinkman

February 2017—A laboratory’s proposal to provide free labeling services to some of its dialysis center clients poses more than a minimal risk of fraud and abuse, according to an advisory opinion from the Office of Inspector General of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

The OIG said in its Nov. 28, 2016 opinion that the laboratory may violate federal Medicare anti-kickback laws by generating prohibited remuneration under the anti-kickback statute. And that may have been exactly what the laboratory wanted to hear.

The circumstances presented to the OIG were straightforward: The unnamed laboratory proposed providing some of its clients with labeling services of test tubes and specimen collection containers. Employees of the laboratory at the lab’s own facilities would do the labeling. No laboratory employees would be stationed at the dialysis facilities. The labeling services, which employees of the dialysis center are performing now, would be furnished free.

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