On August 24, 2020, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) announced an “extension of the timeline” for publication of a final rule addressing changes to the Physician Self-Referral Law (or Stark Law) regulations.  In its announcement, CMS set a new deadline of August 31, 2021 for publication of a final rule.

According to CMS, the delay – which was announced as the industry awaited publication of the final rule by the end of August 2020 – is due to “the complexity of  the issues raised by comments received on the proposed rule.”  The proposed rule had been published in October 2019 (see our analyses of that proposed rule here, here and here).

It remains to be seen whether the Department of Health and Human Services will similarly delay publication of new proposed safe harbor regulations under the Anti-Kickback Statute and federal Civil Monetary Penalties Law that were issued in October 2019 and had been expected any day.