On May 11, the IRS issued a memorandum for hospitals that provide their medical staff physicians with financial assistance to purchase and implement software used predominantly for creating, maintaining, transmitting, or receiving electronic health records.
In the memorandum, the IRS says it will not treat the benefits a hospital provides to its medical staff physicians “as impermissible private benefit or inurement in violation of section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code” if the benefits fall within the range of health IT items and services that are permissible under the HHS EHR regulations. Last year, the Department of Health and Human Services issued final regulations allowing hospitals to provide, within specific parameters, EHR software and technical support services to their medical staff physicians without violating the federal anti-kickback and physician self-referral laws. Read the memorandum.
