Laws about Gainsharing  

The Office of the Inspector General (OIG) has issued three Special Advisory Bulletins on gainsharing arrangements, going back to 1999. "The definition of "gainsharing" refers to an agreement or arrangement in which a hospital provides an inducement to a physician in the form of a pay or a percentage share, of any reduction in the hospital's costs through effort of the physician." 1 Gainsharing is an area of potential fraud or abuse, and there are several other laws that impact the interpretation of relationships between physicians and hospitals.

There are some "Safe Harbors" where the OIG has issued regulations designating specific arrangement that are not in violation of the laws reviewed below. The Safe Harbors are exclusions to the laws, but to utilize them an arrangement must fit exactly into the exclusion to be considered legal.

Establishing definitions is a...