Health Law Curriculum

The Law School offers a broad curriculum in health law with courses in all pertinent areas of the field. These include:

• Advanced Research in Health Law
• AIDS: Ethical, Legal and Policy Issues
• Antitrust and the Health Care Industry
• Bioethics and Law
• Business and Legal Aspects of Health Care Organizations
• ERISA Retirement Plans: Formation and Structure
• Financing and Regulating Health Care
• Food and Drug Law
• Law and Public Health
• Law of Medical Malpractice
• Psychiatry and the Law
• Research on Human and Non-Human Subjects
• Social Regulation of the Body and Its Processes
• Topics in Health Law

Advanced Research in Health Law (2 cr.) DN662 provides a vehicle for students to conduct research, prepare a major paper and present a talk on a health law topic in order to complete their advanced writing requirement and/or the required major research paper for the concentration in health law.

AIDS: Ethical, Legal and Policy Issues (2 cr.) DN696 examines the social and legal response to the AIDS pandemic, as well as ethical issues raised by various measures implemented to limit the spread of the disease. Among other topics, the course will explore the law and ethics of contact tracing and the potential conflict of health care workers between duties of confidentiality to the patient and duties of disclosure to affected third parties. The course will also survey the potential tort and criminal liability of those who expose others to the disease.

Antitrust and the Health Care Industry (2 cr.) DN866 focuses on antitrust issues that are relevant to health care providers, including such areas as hospital and physician mergers, virtual mergers and joint ventures; exclusive contracts and other medical staff exclusion issues; covenants not to compete; physician collective bargaining with, and exclusion from, managed care plans; antitrust defenses such as state action, nonprofit, learned profession, efficiencies, failing business, etc.; and federal and state health care antitrust regulatory efforts, including health care collaborative guidelines.

Bioethics and Law (2 or 3 cr.) DN838 examines how the law in bioethics is shaped by the interplay of ethical principles, medical considerations, and social forces. Topics that will be covered include: the refusal of life-sustaining treatment, physician-assisted suicide, organ transplantation, abortion, the balance between individual liberty and protection of the public health, access to health care, and rationing of health care. An important theme of the course will be to consider the extent to which individuals have--and should have--control over medical decision making.

Business and Legal Aspects of Health Care Organizations (2 cr.) DN859 addresses the business and legal aspects of various health care organizations, including hospitals, nursing homes, physician-professional organizations, physician-hospital organizations, managed care organizations, and integrated delivery networks. Areas of law discussed include the corporate and tax aspects of not-for-profit organizations, antitrust law, state insurance regulation, corporate practice of medicine, Medicare and Medicaid fraud and abuse rules, and professional and corporate liability.

ERISA Retirement Plans: Formation and Structure (2 cr.) DN656 focuses on the formation and structure of qualified retirement plans, such as defined benefit pension plans and 401(k) defined contribution plans. The course looks at the technical requirements under the Internal Revenue Code, as well as plan design issues. The course also reviews ongoing reporting and disclosure compliance issues imposed under ERISA and the Internal Revenue Code.

Financing and Regulating Health Care (2 or 3 cr.) DN845 covers selected legal issues in financing and regulation of the American health care system. The course emphasizes chief policy issues facing the American health care system today--cost, access, and equality of health care services for all Americans.

Food and Drug Law (2 cr.) DN888 surveys statutes and regulations dealing with the production, distribution, and sale of food, drugs, cosmetics, and medical devices. The course focuses primarily on substantive and procedural requirements of the Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act.

Law and Public Health (2 cr.) DN761 covers the law governing the practice of public health by state, local, and federal agencies, as well as health care professionals and institutions. Topics addressed include legal mandates on public health agencies, physicians, and other health practitioners regarding testing, reporting, and contact tracing with respect to specific diseases, as well as laws for the imposition of quarantine, civil commitment, and mandatory treatment. Also covered are public health aspects of the regulation of health care institutions, legal issues associated with risk assessment and cost benefit analysis, along with the environment.

Law of Medical Malpractice (2 or 3 cr.) DN824 covers law relating to the practice of medicine and allied fields in contexts of organizing and regulating professions, theories of liability and defenses pertinent to claims of patients for injurious professional conduct, along with practice and procedure in professional malpractice claims.

Psychiatry and the Law (2 cr.) DN874 introduces the psychiatric discipline as it relates to the law and covers its use as a forensic art in court.

Research on Human and Non-Human Subjects (2 cr.) DN693 surveys issues arising out of experimentation on human subjects and the treatment of animals in research. Topics for discussion will include an exploration of the philosophical nature of informed consent, coercion and exploitation in the human context, to the moral significance of sentience as a consideration in animal research, to an examination of the differences between therapeutic and non-therapeutic research.

Social Regulation of the Body and Its Processes (2 cr.) DN691 examines problems related to the social allocation of the body and its products such as the extent to which individuals have an ethically and legally protectable interest in their bodies and body processes. Topics for consideration will include the legal status of human ova and sperm, frozen embryos, and the products of medical research developed from materials taken from the bodies of interested subjects. The course will also consider the ethics and the legal regulation of organ allocation.

Topics in Health Law (2 or 3 cr.) DN763 examines specialized topics in health law not addressed in depth by other courses. Possible topics include health care fraud and abuse law, the regulation of long term care, the law of payment of health care providers, biotechnology and the law, genetics and the law, reproductive rights, end-of-life decision making, and privacy issues in health law. Prerequisites will vary according to the subject of the course as announced.