Stuart M. Gerson, Member of the Firm in the Litigation and Health Care & Life Sciences practices, in the firm’s Washington, DC, and New York offices, was quoted in Law360, in “Pharma Charity’s Suit Tests OIG’s Kickback Oversight,” by Jeff Overley. (Read the full version – subscription required.)
Following is an excerpt:
A patient assistance charity’s First Amendment challenge to limits on its interactions with pharmaceutical industry donors poses a pivotal test to anti-kickback oversight by the Office of Inspector General for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
The lawsuit filed this week by a well-heeled charity called Patient Services Inc. represents an unusual legal attack on OIG advisory opinions. The opinions discuss how independent charities can accept drugmaker dollars without functioning as illicit channels for funneling kickbacks to patients who use drugs covered by Medicare and Medicaid. …
“If the charity wins, I think the effect will be to liberate further conversation of issues like this,” Epstein Becker Green member Stuart Gerson said.
But Gerson added: “It’s not a get-out-of-jail-free card if subsequent conversations result in kickbacks or other unlawful activity. So parties would proceed at their own risk.”
