Federal Regulations' Impact on Alternative Health Care

It is not uncommon for physicians to create an alternative health care center to foster their belief in a more holistic or complementary approach to health care for their patients. As such, alternative health care (a.k.a. holistic, integrative and complementary) centers continue to spring up, offering services such as acupuncture, pain management and nutrition, and nonconventional therapies such as biofeedback, meditation and yoga, along with more nonconventional methods, such as reiki and homeopathy.

Today’s health care profession is one of the most regulated industries in the United States. Principal among the regulations affecting the health care profession are:

• The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996, which is typically identified with protecting patient confidentiality by securing personal health care information.
• The Stark law, which contains three separate provisions that generally govern physicians’ self-referral as it relates to patients covered by Medicare and Medicaid. Self-referral is when a physician refers a patient to a medical facility in which he or she has a financial interest.