The Stark LawSome federal statutes address fraud in government health programs, and many of these laws vary considerably (Krause 2004). Some of these laws specifically target healthcare fraud. An example of the laws the government directs against inappropriate healthcare activities includes the “Medicare and Medicaid Anti-Kickback and Ethics in Patient Referral (EPRA) Statute.” In 1989, Congress enacted the Ethics in Patient Referrals Act. Commonly known as the Stark Law, Congress named it after Representative Pete Stark, a California Democrat and the bill's original sponsor (Sprague 2004). This law places limitations on self-referrals by physicians and prohibits physicians from referring patients to organizations in which they have an interest in “designated health services” (DHS) for which Medicare or Medicaid can foot the bill (Staman 2010). In other words, the basic application of the Stark Law prohibits “physicians from referring Medicare and Medicaid patients” to hospitals, facilities, or other healthcare entities in which they have a financial interest (Choudhry, Choudhry, and Brennan 2005, 364). It also prohibits a physician from referring Medicare and Medicaid patients to hospitals or health care entities with which an immediate family member has a financial relationship. In accordance with the law, self-referrals are unethical practices that involve a doctor referring patients to entities in which they have a financial interest. A financial interest may arise from ownership of a party or investment in the entity. A financial interest may also occur when a physician has a “structured compensation arrangement” with a healthcare facility or entity (O'Sullivan 2007). ...... half of the paper ...... the Civil False Claims Act v. Medicare Provider Federal Courts: A Content Analysis Based on Agency Theory. PhD diss., The George Washington University. Kusserow, Richard P. 1997. The Medicare Medicaid Antikickback Statute and the Safe Harbor Rules: What's Next? Healthcare Matrix: Journal of Law and Medicine 2, no. 1 (Spring): 49- (22 p).Kvale, Steinar and Svend Brinkmann. 2009. Interviews: Learning the art of the qualitative research interview. 2nd ed. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.Lagnado, Lucette. 2000a. Columbia/HCA will pay $745 million. Wall Street Journal.May 19.Lagnado, Lucette. 2000b. HCA unit's guilty pleas resolve largest Medicare criminal investigation. Wall Street Journal, December 15. Lahman, Larry D. 2005. Bad mule: a primer on the Federal False Claims Act. The OklahomaBar Journal 76, no. 12 (April): 901-907.