Company: AMWL
Filing Date: 2025-02-12
Form Type: 10-K
Source: 0000950170-25-019024
Chunk: 71

Company: American Well Corp
Filing Date: 2025-02-12
Form: 10-K
Item: Item 1
Chunk 71
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 can give rise to civil, criminal or administrative penalties. 

Corporate Practice of Medicine Laws in the U.S.; Fee Splitting 

We contract with physicians or physician-owned professional associations and professional corporations to provide access to our enterprise platform to them and their patients. We have entered into management services contracts with AMG-affiliated entities pursuant to which we provide them with billing, scheduling and a wide range of other administrative and management services, and they pay us for those services via management and other service fees. These contractual relationships are subject to various state laws, including those of New York, Texas and California, that prohibit fee splitting or the practice of medicine by lay entities or persons and that are intended to prevent unlicensed persons from interfering with or influencing a physician’s professional judgment. Activities other than those directly related to the delivery of healthcare may be considered an element of the practice of medicine in many states. Under the corporate practice of medicine restrictions of certain states, decisions and activities such as scheduling, contracting, setting rates and the hiring and management of non-clinical personnel may implicate the restrictions on the corporate practice of medicine. 

State corporate practice of medicine and fee splitting laws and rules vary from state to state and are not always consistent among states. In addition, these requirements are subject to broad interpretation and enforcement by state regulators. Some of these requirements may apply to us even if we do not have a physical presence in the state, based solely on our engagement of a provider licensed in the state or the provision of digital care to a resident of the state. Thus, regulatory authorities or other parties, including our providers, may assert that, despite these arrangements, we are engaged in the corporate practice of medicine or that our contractual arrangements with affiliated physician groups constitute unlawful fee splitting. In such event, failure to comply could lead to adverse judicial or administrative action against us and/or our affiliated providers, civil, criminal or administrative penalties, receipt of cease-and-desist orders from state regulators, loss of provider licenses, the need to make changes to the terms of engagement of our providers that interfere with our business, and other materially adverse consequences. 

U.S. Federal and State Fraud and Abuse Laws 

Federal Stark Law 

We are subject to the federal self-referral prohibitions, commonly known as the Stark Law. Where applicable, this law prohibits a physician from referring Medicare patients for “designated health services” such as laboratory and radiology services that are furnished at an entity if the physician or a member of such physician’s immediate family has a “financial relationship” with the entity