Dr. Steinmann attended medical school at the College of Osteopathic Medicine of the Pacific at Western University of Health Sciences in Pomona, Calif., and completed both his internship and residency at Botsford Hospital in Farmington Hills, Minn. He then completed a fellowship at Harborview Medical Center in Seattle.
At the 18th Annual Ambulatory Surgery Centers Conference in Chicago in 2011, Dr. Steinmann discussed physician-owned ancillaries and distributorships. In the physician-owned distributor model, the distributorship can sell implants to hospitals at a significantly discounted rate, he said. While there is a risk of violating the Anti-Kickback and Stark laws, Dr. Steinmann said that if you operate the business properly, the physicians will remain compliant. “You have to set this up right. There is no shortage of people doing it wrong, and it threatens the model,” he said.
Dr. Steinmann said the key to remaining compliant is choosing a trustworthy team whose goals are aligned. “The take home lesson is to go into it with the right intent: to save healthcare dollars and maintain [or increase] quality,” Dr. Steinmann said. He said the model may work best with smaller groups with a high level of trust between members.
