Healthcare trade show marketing: booths, dinners and speakers when physicians are the audience

A booth at a medical conference, a table at a county medical society meeting or a sponsored dinner during a specialty meeting puts a practice or health business in front of the physicians who could send it patients. That is the point of going, and it is also why the federal Anti-Kickback Statute matters more at a trade show than at a patient-facing event. When the people at the booth are referral sources, anything of value that changes hands there is a referral question first and a marketing question second. This guide is for imaging centers, labs, surgery centers, home health agencies, therapy groups and specialty practices that exhibit to physicians, and for the physicians who attend.

Several related topics have their own guides and are not repeated here. How the Anti-Kickback Statute, the Stark law and state law fit together is covered in patient and physician referrals. Open Payments reporting by drug and device manufacturers, including what counts as a transfer of value and what is excluded, is covered in Open Payments and the Sunshine Act. Free staff, equipment, specimen payments and requisition forms are covered in clinical lab marketing to physicians. Gifts and office lunches for referring physicians outside a conference are covered in our guide to gifts and meals for referring physicians. Promoting a booth or a speaker session on LinkedIn is covered in our guide to LinkedIn ads and posts for healthcare companies. For liaisons who also visit referring offices between shows, see our guide to physician liaison programs.

Why a booth is a referral question

The Anti-Kickback Statute, 42 U.S.C. 1320a-7b(b), makes it a felony to knowingly and willfully offer or pay any remuneration, “directly or indirectly, overtly or covertly, in cash or in kind”, to induce a person to refer an individual for an item or service that may be paid for in whole or in part under a Federal health care program, or to induce them to order or recommend one. The same section makes it a felony to solicit or receive that remuneration. The statute sets a fine of up to $100,000, imprisonment of up to 10 years, or both.

Two parts of that text matter at a trade show. First, “in kind” means the statute is not limited to cash. In the OIG Special Fraud Alert on speaker programs, OIG explains that remuneration “includes the transfer of anything of value, directly or indirectly, overtly or covertly, in cash or in kind”. Second, the statute reaches both sides. A physician who asks for or accepts something of value in return for referrals is covered, not only the business that offers it.

OIG also says in the same alert that the lawfulness of any arrangement “depends on the facts and circumstances and intent of the parties”. There is no list of items that are safe at every booth. What a practice can do is design its presence so that the value it offers is information about its services, and keep anything else small, documented and reviewed.

What goes on the booth table

A booth exists to explain what you do: the services you offer, how a physician’s office sends an order or a referral, turnaround times you can document, which payers you accept and who to call with questions. All of that is information, and information is what a referring office needs to decide whether your service fits their patients.

Items are a different matter. A pen or a printed referral pad is one thing. A tablet raffle, gift cards, event tickets or a free service for the physician’s own staff is something else, because each has value to the person who receives it. The statute does not set a dollar line for remuneration, so a practice should not invent one. Write a booth policy with your attorney that lists what may be handed out, who approves exceptions and how each exception is recorded, and give a copy to everyone who staffs the booth.

Prize drawings deserve their own line in that policy. A drawing that asks physicians to leave contact details for a chance at something valuable puts a thing of value in front of referral sources as a reward for engaging with your sales team. If you want contact details, ask for them in exchange for what you are already there to give: a service sheet, a referral guide or a follow-up call.

Dinners, receptions and side events

Much of what happens at a conference is off the exhibit floor: the dinner the night before, the reception in a hotel suite, the sponsored session over lunch. The OIG speaker program alert lists characteristics that, “taken separately or together”, potentially indicate a speaker program arrangement that could violate the Anti-Kickback Statute. The alert is written about drug and device company speaker programs, but the characteristics read as a plain checklist for any hosted event aimed at referral sources. OIG lists these, among others:

• little or no substantive information is actually presented;
• alcohol is available or a meal exceeding modest value is provided to attendees, with the concern heightened when the alcohol is free;
• the program is held at a location that is not conducive to the exchange of educational information, with restaurants and entertainment or sports venues given as examples;
• attendees include people without a legitimate business reason to attend, such as friends, significant others or family members;
• attendees come to programs on the same or substantially the same topic more than once;
• sales or marketing staff influence who is selected, or speakers or attendees are selected based on the revenue they have generated or are expected to generate.

OIG states that this list is “illustrative, not exhaustive” and that no single factor decides the question. In the alert, OIG also gives examples drawn from cases it describes as alleged, including programs held at wineries, sports stadiums, fishing trips and golf clubs, and high-end restaurant programs with expensive meals and alcohol. For a practice planning a side event, the safer design follows from the list: a real program with real content, a setting where people can hear and see it, a meal that is not the reason to come, and an invitation list built on who needs the information.

Paying a physician to speak for you

A business that wants a respected physician to present at its booth, its sponsored session or its dinner may offer to pay that physician. The alert describes two features that raise concern. One is paying “more than fair market value for the speaking service”. The other is paying “compensation that takes into account the volume or value of past business generated or potential future business generated” by the physician.

For a referral-dependent business, the second point is the harder one. If the physicians you invite to speak are also your biggest referrers, write down why each speaker was chosen for reasons that have nothing to do with referrals, such as subject expertise, publications or teaching role. Set the fee in writing before the event, base it on the work and the time, and keep a copy of the presentation they gave. OIG notes in the alert that physicians who speak can face liability too, so a physician invited to speak can ask for the same documentation.

OIG also writes that it is “skeptical about the educational value” of these programs, in part because the same information is available through package inserts, journals, online resources and third-party conferences. A business that sponsors a talk should be able to say what the audience learns there that they could not easily learn elsewhere. Funding independent education instead of hosting your own talk has its own rules; see our guide to CME and sponsored symposia.

Who gets invited and who shows up

Invitation lists are where intent becomes visible. The alert flags attendees who have no legitimate business reason to be there, including family members and friends, employees or professionals from the speaker’s own practice, and staff of facilities where the speaker is medical director. It also flags repeat attendance at the same program.

A practical control is a sign-in sheet that records each attendee’s name, role and organization, kept with the agenda and the receipt. If a guest of an attendee joins the meal, that is a cost you are choosing to pay for someone with no business reason to be there, and the policy should say whether that is allowed. If the same physicians attend the same dinner every quarter, review whether there is anything new to present.

Open Payments: when it applies to you

Open Payments is the federal transparency program for payments from makers of covered drugs, devices, biologicals and medical supplies to covered recipients such as physicians and teaching hospitals. The reporting duty in 42 CFR 403.904 falls on applicable manufacturers. If you are a practice, a surgery center, an imaging center or a home health agency and not a manufacturer, the reporting duty in that section is not written for you. If you are a manufacturer, or you partner with one at a joint booth or event, the rule matters directly.

Two parts of 42 CFR 403.904 speak to events. Under 403.904(g)(1), when food is shared in a group setting and each person’s portion cannot be separated, the manufacturer divides the total cost by everyone who ate, including people who are not covered recipients, and reports the per-person value only for covered recipients who “actually partook”. Under 403.904(g)(2), manufacturers are not required to report or track “buffet meals, snacks, soft drinks, or coffee made generally available to all participants of a large-scale conference or similar large-scale event”. A private dinner for selected physicians is not that. The full list of reporting categories and exclusions is in our Open Payments guide.

Not having to report a payment does not make it permitted. Open Payments is a disclosure rule. The Anti-Kickback Statute still applies to the same meal, and the questions in the sections above still need answers.

State gift and meal rules

A state can set its own rules on what drug and device companies or health care businesses may give to clinicians, along with its own disclosure filings and its own limits. These rules are set state by state and change over time. Before you plan hospitality or giveaways for a meeting, check the rules of the state where the event is held and the states where your invited physicians practice, and write down what you checked and when.

What the booth and the follow-up say

A trade show audience is professional, but the claims you make to them still need support. Turnaround times, accuracy statements, payer lists and comparisons with other providers should match what you can document on the day of the show. Our guide on clinical lab marketing to physicians covers physician-facing claims in more detail, and physician advertising rules covers how state boards treat credentials and comparisons.

A booth is also not a place to take patient information. If a physician starts describing a specific patient to see whether you can help, ask them to send the order or referral through the channel their office already uses for patient information, and do not write the details on a lead card or in a badge-scan note. Lead capture at a trade show should hold business contact details and the topics a physician asked about, nothing more.

Follow-up after the show should say the same thing the booth said. If you send email, the guide on healthcare email marketing covers the basics. A follow-up offer of a free service, a gift or an invitation to an event is a new transfer of value and goes through the same policy as the booth.

Illustration: two ways to plan the same conference

Illustration: a regional imaging center plans its presence at a state specialty meeting. The marketing team proposes a booth with a tablet raffle for physicians who scan their badges, a dinner at a steakhouse for the twenty physicians who sent it the largest number of studies last year, and a paid talk by the center’s top referrer. Each piece puts something of value in front of referral sources, and two of them select people by the business they send. Measured against the OIG alert, the plan has several of the characteristics OIG lists.

Illustration: the same center revises the plan with its attorney. The booth offers a printed service guide, the ordering instructions for each study type, and a sign-up for a follow-up call from the clinical liaison. There is no raffle. The evening event becomes a short case review held in a meeting room, presented by a radiologist chosen for subject expertise, with a written fee set before the meeting, a modest meal, an open invitation to all meeting attendees in the relevant specialty, and a sign-in sheet. Everything is filed with the agenda and the receipts.

Checklist

• We have a written booth policy that lists what may be handed out and who approves exceptions.
• Booth staff have the policy and know not to offer gifts, prizes or free services to physicians.
• Contact details are collected in exchange for information, not for a chance at a prize.
• Side events have real content, a setting where it can be heard, and a meal that is not the draw.
• Invitations are based on who needs the information, not on referral volume.
• Speakers are chosen for expertise, paid a written fee set in advance based on the work, and their materials are kept.
• Sign-in sheets, agendas and receipts are filed for each event.
• We know whether we are an applicable manufacturer for Open Payments, and our partners know who reports what.
• State gift and meal rules were checked for the event state and the attendees’ states, with the date noted.
• Claims on the booth and in follow-up are documented, and no patient information goes on a lead card.
• A health care attorney reviewed the plan before the event was booked.

How we help

We build websites, local search, Google Ads and AI front desk tools for independent practices and health businesses. For a business that exhibits to physicians, we can build the referral and ordering pages a booth points to, and set up inquiry tracking that records which physician offices made contact after a show without holding patient information. Our tools are built with HIPAA in mind. We confirm in writing what a BAA covers before any patient information flows through a tool, and if it is not covered, we do not route patient information through it. We do not sell lead lists and we do not pay for referrals. For the wider rules, see our healthcare marketing rules hub.

Sources

• 42 U.S.C. 1320a-7b: Criminal penalties for acts involving Federal health care programs, including (b) illegal remunerations
• HHS OIG Special Fraud Alert: Speaker Programs (November 16, 2020)
• 42 CFR 403.904: Reports of payments or other transfers of value to covered recipients

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