Health Law Program

Health law is a broad and dynamic legal arena that encompasses health care delivery and the health care industry, including all of their component parts: providers, insurers, patients, drug companies and researchers. This legal specialty has expanded in part because of the increased complexity of relationships in the health care field and the intense fragmentation of the American health care delivery system.

The purpose of our Health Law Concentration is to create a community: students; faculty who specialize in health law and health policy; health lawyers as adjunct professors; and members of the legal, nonprofit, and government world who want to think seriously about health policy and what health lawyers and regulators do in a variety of settings. Our program works with the Drexel Schools of Medicine and Public Health, and the Center for Bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania, organizing academic and professional symposia and other events. Professors from these programs also engage in joint research or teaching projects with members of our faculty.

The centerpiece of the concentration is its curriculum. Traditional courses such as Health Law I and II investigate major legal and policy themes of health law and the rapidly-shifting means by which patients gain access to health care, and through which sponsors of health coverage organize and compensate health care providers. Courses in Health Care Finance and Bioethics examine basic economic material and concepts behind healthcare as well as the philosophical and ethical underpinnings of the doctor - patient relationship, of government regulation of health care, and of protection of the individual as patient and human research subject.

In addition to our joint J.D./M.P.H. degree program with the Drexel School of Public Health, we also offer a joint J.D./Ph.D. degree program in Law and Psychology with Drexel's College of Arts and Sciences.