There are two legitimate reasons as to why a DME supplier desires to provide “value-added” services and products to its patients. First, doing so can improve the patient’s health and, hopefully, prevent a trip to the hospital. Secondly, providing value-added services and products helps distinguish the supplier from its competitors.

In going down this path, the supplier needs to be aware that while it is acceptable to provide value-added services and products, it is not acceptable for the supplier to provide so much that it “crosses the line” to offering prohibited inducements. Doing so will violate the federal beneficiary inducement statute and the federal anti-kickback statute.

This webinar will discuss how a DME supplier can provide value-added services and products while avoiding violating these two statutes. In particular, the webinar will focus on recent OIG guidance that encourages health care providers to provide free services and products to Medicare beneficiaries in which such services and products are designed to promote the beneficiaries’ health. In addition to discussing what the supplier can do in providing free products and services, the webinar will discuss what the supplier cannot do.