CMS Says Hospitals Can Pay for On-site CME Programs for Physicians
[Posted 05/25/06]

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) recently announced that it will allow hospitals to pay for onsite CME for its medical staff physicians. This is an important and long-awaited interpretation of CMS’s physician self-referral anti-kickback rules, which until now appeared to prohibit hospitals from paying for any CME on behalf of physicians, because such payments might be considered compensation for patient referrals.

“Traditional on-site hospital grand rounds and other similar in-house education programs provided by hospitals are important and convenient ways for physicians to earn CME credit and for hospitals to ensure high quality patient care,” wrote CMS administrator Mark McClellan, M.D., in a letter to AMA. “We do not believe that such programs…necessarily constitute remuneration to the physicians that attend them.”

CMS will, however, continue to prohibit hospital payment for physicians’ off-site CME programs.

Click here to read Dr. McClellan's letter.

Contact: CMA’s legal information line, 415/882-5144 or legalinfo@cmanet.org.