The Voluntary Self-Referral Disclosure Protocol (SRDP) recently released by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) looks remarkably familiar. The new SRDP permits hospitals and other providers who believe that they are or might be providing services in violation of the federal Stark physician self-referral law (42 U.S.C. § 1395nn) to disclose such actual or potential violation to CMS in the hopes of resolving the matter as favorably as possible. Required by the health care reform law, the SRDP is specifically limited to reports of actual or potential violations of the Stark self-referral law, so-called Stark-only violations. In contrast, the Self Disclosure Protocol used by the Office of Inspector General (OIG) of Health and Human Services should be used to disclose potential violations that are based, at least in part, on the anti-kickback statute, False Claims Act, or civil monetary penalties.

The table in this article shows the comparison between the Self-Referral Disclosure Protocol and the Self Disclosure Protocol.