Health Law Degree

Why Health and Law are such a Good Combination

Health law degree programs provide a strong grounding in health issues from the legal and public policy perspective. This combination of knowledge and skills is essential to a career in health care, especially in this day and age.

What is Health Law?

Health law combines all aspects of the legal system overlooking the organization, financing and delivery of health care services. It applies the principals of law to one of the largest industries of today, health care. Because health care is so broad and vast, a health law degree will allow you to practice law in a variety of areas or to become very specialized in a certain aspect of health law.

While practicing health law you will come into contact with areas such as antitrust, elder law and bioethics. Antitrust issues revolve around medical staff decisions, health organization activates as well as joint ventures and acquisitions.

Elder law focuses on issues such as guardianship, long-term care, property management, health care funding and elder abuse. Bioethics focuses on legal and policy issues as they relate to stem cell research, the human genome project and reproductive rights.

Additional areas include access to care, long term care, disability law, drug and device regulation, fraud and abuse, health care finance, human research and public health law and policy.

Health Law Courses and Curriculum

Health law degree programs are constantly revising and updating their curriculum in order to keep up with the changing health care industry.

Courses include health care fraud and abuse, transactional health law, food and drug law, pharmaceutical and medical device marketing and compliance, health law and policy, current issues in health law, bioethics and law, biomedical technology law, financing in the health care industry, and mental health law. This list of courses is in no way exhaustive, but even from this small sample you can see the breath of the content covered.

Careers in Health Law

The health law field is very broad and is present in every aspect of our lives. As a result, a degree in health law will allow you to choose among many career options. With this degree you could work in law firms, government positions, as in-house counsel as well as consulting firms.

Law Firms:

Most health lawyers start off their career working for law firms. Because health care organizations, hospitals and other health care providers do not have the resources or the knowledge to train lawyers straight out of law school, they prefer to hire lawyers with some law firm experience. In selecting law firms select those that have a health law practice or even focus and specialize in health law.

As a health lawyer in law firms you would represent a number of different clients. For example, you would represent individuals, such as physicians or health care professionals. You could also represent health care providers such as hospitals, nursing homes and long term care facilities. In this role you would defend hospital policies, determine tax liability and draft disclosure agreements. Additionally, you could represent insurance companies, providing assistance in claim defense. Finally, you could represent suppliers and vendors like pharmaceutical companies and equipment manufacturers.

Government:

In a government position you could work at the federal, state and local level. Some of the most common government agencies with positions for health lawyers are US Department of Health and Human Service, Center for Disease Control and Prevention, Food and Drug Administration, Office of Inspector General and the Labor Department. Visit any of the listed government sites to obtain more information regarding available careers. You will find many government positions available for those with a health law degree.

In-House Counsel Positions:

As an in-house counsel you would work for a single company, providing advice on legal matters related to the business of the corporation. Some examples of these types of positions include in-house counsel for health care providers, suppliers and vendors, pharmaceutical and medical device companies as well as health care trade associations.

Consulting Firms:

Health care consulting firms focus on research with the goal of improving health care structure and finance. These organizations tend to prefer lawyers with some experience in the health care field and as a result, are not a good starting place after law school.

Should you try to obtain your health law degree online? This question is hard to answer as there is no absolute answer. Online education works well for some while others prefer face-to-face interaction. You should try taking a couple of online courses prior to committing to a full online education program. While online education has many benefits, if it does not fit your learning style, all the benefits will not help.

The flexibility, freedom and easy it brings make online education a viable choice and something to look into. Don’t ignore the possibility of obtaining your degree online, just because you don’t know much about it. Request information from a number of online schools; examine their program description, faculty make-up, course offerings and curriculum design. Once you have done all your research, make an educated decision and begin your journey toward a better career.

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