To complete this concentration, a student must take a sufficient number of health law courses to obtain 16 concentration semester credits, exclusive of the Co‐op or the Practicum, including:

[1] During Year 2

• Health Law I Regulation of Quality and Personhood
• Health Law II Regulation of Cost and Access
• Health Law III Health Policy Colloquium

[2] During Year 3

• Health Law Practicum
  or
• Health Law Co‐op
  or
• JD/MPH joint degree program (the co‐op will be combined
  with the field experience required for the MPH)

[3] During Year 2 or 3

Electives – Student should choose no less than 8 credits from the following:

• Administrative Law*
• Bioethics*
• Business Organizations*
• Fraud and Abuse*
• Health Care Finance* 
• Medical Malpractice 
• Mental Health Law 
• Nonprofit Organizations * 
• Patient Safety 
• Products Liability 
• Public Health Law 
• Toxic Torts
• PBHL 601 Management of Healthcare Outcomes 
• PBHL 607 Evolution of the U.S. Health System 
• PBHL 609 Emerging Issues in U.S. Health Policy 
• PBHL 650 Policy and Advocacy 
• BIOE 540 Mediation as a Dispute Resolution 
• Mechanism in Health Care Disputes
• BIOE 555 Desperate Remedies, Emerging 
• Technologies, and Novel Therapies
• BIOE 570 The Insider’s Guide to Biopolitics 
• BIOE 601 Introduction to Bioethics

PBHL = Public Health School courses sufficiently grounded in health policy to count as electives.
BIOE = Center for Bioethics of the University of Pennsylvania. By agreement, our students may take up to two bioethics courses at the Center. Tuition is at UPenn rates and with the approval of the instructor.
* Highly Recommended for concentrators.

[4] Writing Requirement

Concentrators must write a satisfactory paper (or a series of papers) on a health law topic, using any course, clinic, seminar or practicum (but not Co-op) placements. The page length should be around 20-25 pages, but may vary. Prior approval of the topic by the Program Director and course instructor is required.

No credits can be double counted for the purpose of fulfilling the practical and/or writing requirements, thus, for example, a seminar paper used to fulfill the writing requirement cannot then be utilized towards the course requirement.

To receive "Honors" in the concentration, the student must have an overall GPA of 3.2 or better in the courses counted toward completion of the concentration. 

[5] Grade Requirement

A student must earn a grade of “C+” or better in each course counted toward completion of the requirements. Upon application to the Director and for good reason, one grade of less than “C+” may be accepted.

The concentration requires an overall 2.5 minimum GPA.

Tracks within Health Law

The following tracks are intended as guides, or roadmaps, to the specialty areas of practice and interest
within the larger field of health law. Courses may be chosen from any one track, or from a combination
sufficient to achieve a minimum of 16 credit hours of course work.

• Transactions – Health Care Finance, Fraud and Abuse, Business Organizations, Nonprofit Organizations
• Litigation – Products Liability, Medical Malpractice, Toxic Torts, Patient Safety
• Pharmaceuticals/Biotech – Food and Drug Law, Administrative Law, Health Care Finance, Bioproperty, Patents
• Patient care – Bioethics, Patient Safety, Mental health Law
• Public health – Public Health Law, Mental Health Law, Administrative Law

Please consult the course catalog for course descriptions and credit values.