Title: Can Hospitals Share Cost Savings With Their Oncologists?
Abstract: Department of Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General (OIG) has recently issued a remarkable series of six inter-related advisory opinions that give more favorable treatment to gainsharing arrangements between physicians and hospitals.In health care, gainsharing is an arrangement by which a hospital gives physicians a share of any reduction in the hospital's costs for patient care attributable in part to the physician's efforts.A gainsharing program typically involves a sharing of the cost savings achieved by the hospital through some combination of a percentage payment, an hourly fee, or a fixed fee to the physician, together with features to safeguard quality of care and control malpractice liability exposure.