Juris Doctorate/Master of Business Administration (JD/MBA) in Law and Health Care Management Course Descriptions
Course Description
The class focuses on case analysis, case synthesis, statutory construction, research techniques, legal correspondence, and citation form. Students will engage in objective analysis and analyze several fact situations and prepare intra-office memos and correspond with "clients."
JD 102 Contracts 4 units
Course Description
Basic course for the study of the law of contracts, offer and acceptance, consideration, parties to the contract, joint and several contracts, conditional and third party contracts, illegality, discharge, Statute of Frauds and Parole Evidence Rule as they affect contractual obligations.
JD 103 Remedies 4 units
Course Description
Legal and equitable remedies, including damages, injunctive and declaratory relief, specific performance, rescission, and restitution. Considerations in choosing a remedy. Alternate remedies.
JD 104 Torts 4 units
Course Description
Intentional torts and defenses, negligence, vicarious liability, and strict liability, including products liability. Interference with contract, privacy, defamation, and other relational torts.
JD 105 Legal Research, Writing & Analysis II 2 units
Course Description
Legal Research, Writing & Analysis II focuses on persuasive writing. Students analyze an extensive fact situation and prepare an argumentative memorandum and an appellate brief. In addition, students give oral arguments on campus and engage in settlement negotiations concerning their case. The course culminates with an oral appellate argument, based on the appellate brief, before a three judge moot court panel at the downtown courthouse.
JD 106 Criminal Law 4 units
Course Description
Fundamentals of the substantive law of crimes, punishable acts and omissions, requisite intent, legal defenses, liability for conspiracy and attempt, lesser included offenses, enforcement of the law and introduction to criminal procedure.
JD 107 Civil Procedure I 4 units
Course Description
This course examines constitutional constraints on government investigation of crime. Topics include search and seizure, interrogations and confessions and eyewitness identification. While the focus is on the United States Constitution (4th, 5th, and 6th amendments and due process), some attention will be paid to state constitutional issues. Some coverage will also be given to the role of victims at this stage of the procedure.
JD 108 Evidence 4 units
Course Description
Inquiry into relationship of pleadings and proof at trial, techniques of proof, judicial notice, rules relating to witnesses, documents and demonstrative evidence; discovery procedures and application of rules of evidence at trial; hearsay and its exceptions.
JD 109 Civil Procedure II 4 units
Course Description
Civil Procedure II focuses on the procedural rules governing the adjudication of criminal cases, with emphasis on fundamental constitutional doctrines. Topics include charging decisions and prosecutorial discretion, discovery, pre-trial motions, plea negotiations, the rights of the defendant at trial, jury selection, the role of the jury, sentencing, appeal and post-conviction relief.
JD 110 Criminal Procedure 4 units
Course Description
Procedures from arrest through appellate proceedings, bail, and release on own recognizance, arraignments, motions, discovery and trial procedures; search and seizure and other constitutional guaranties as interpreted by recent Supreme Court decisions.
JD 111 Constitutional Law I 4 units
Course Description
This introductory course focuses on the issues raised by the structural parts of the United States Constitution. Consideration will be given to judicial processes in constitutional cases; judicial review; and the federal courts functioning in the constitutional system. Attention will then be given to the relationships of the three federal branches of government, with emphasis on some of the powers and limitations of the executive, legislative and judicial bodies that arise from principles of separation of powers and national checks and balances. The course will also consider federalism and the respective roles of the national and state governments in some detail. Both general principles and their specific application to sources of federal and states powers and their limitations will be discussed, with particular emphasis on examples under the commerce clause.
JD 112 Constitutional Law II 4 units
Course Description
This course is a continuation of Constitutional Law I. There, the focus was on the structural constitution-federalism, the separation of powers, and the role of the courts. In Constitutional Law II, the focus is on individual rights and their protection under the Constitution. We study primarily the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments for substantive due process and equal protection and the First Amendment for the freedoms of speech and religion.
JD 113 Wills & Trusts 4 units
Course Description
The substantive law of trusts; express and implied trusts; formation of testamentary and inter vivo trusts; rights and duties of grantor, trustee and beneficiary; administration of the trust. The law of wills in California and its origin, including non-probate changes in ownership at death, interstate succession, the statute of wills, validity and interpretation of wills.
JD 114 Property I 4 units
Course Description
An introductory investigation of Anglo-American rules governing acquisition, transfer, and use of real and personal property. Acquisition of property is studied through the law of finders, the rule of capture, and the doctrine of adverse possession. Transfer of property is evaluated through the concept of estates in land and future interests, including marital interests.
JD 116 Property II 4 units
Course Description
Property II focuses on the historical development of land law, common law estates and conveyances. statute of uses, indicia of ownership, modem conveyance, landlord and tenant issues, deeds, recording acts, covenants, easements, equitable servitudes, adverse possession, rights and duties incident to the ownership of land, future interests. Emphasis is given to the tension between public needs and private desires in the allocation, transfer, and development of property rights.
MBA 101 Managing Organizations & People 4 units
Course Description
Introduces students to concepts, models and frameworks to help them become better acquainted with the organizations they work for, the teams they work in, the people they work with, and their own personal development. The course focuses on five main areas of study: developing as a manager, working well within groups, developing effective organizations, assessing the external environment in which organizations operate, and initiating change within organizations. Tying all of these elements together, the course devotes particular attention to the traits, skills and behaviors that are indicative of good leadership. It also explores how organizations and managers can be transformed for better alignment with the business demands of the future.
MBA 102 Financial Reporting and Control 4 units
Course Description
Introduces accounting and an examination of how it helps in decision-making. Financial accounting (information needs of stockholders, creditors, and analysts) and managerial accounting (information needs of managers) are stressed equally. Topics covered include: income statement and balance sheet format, purposes, and limitations, statement of cash flows, analysis of financial statements, cost behavior, use of relevant costs in decision-making, budgeting, and divisional performance measurement. Course includes lectures, exams, and a group project.
MBA 103 Data Analysis for Managerial Decision Making 4 units
Course Description
Managers deal with a large amount of information in quantitative form. Effective managers must understand the conditions under which quantitative techniques may be appropriately applied for decision-making. In this course, students develop skills in using the computer to examine and report data Focus is on supporting decisions through: deriving meaning from particular data sets, use of statistical estimation, hypothesis testing, and regression/correlation analysis.
MBA 104 Marketing Management 4 units
Course Description
Builds an in-depth understanding of basic marketing concepts and applies those concepts to a variety of management situations, including non-profit and public sector settings. The course provides working knowledge of the tools of marketing (product policy, pricing, distribution, promotion, consumer behavior), and the ways in which these tools can be usefully employed. The course also builds practical skills in analyzing marketing problems and opportunities and in developing marketing programs.
MBA 105 Financial Management 4 units
Course Description
This course examines three sets of issues: saving and investing decisions by households, investment and financing decisions by corporations, role of securities markets and financial intermediaries in the economy. Decisions today affect the timing and uncertainty of future flows of income; both timing and risk determine the current value of those future flows. This course develops the tools required to analyze these decisions and their interaction within the financial system.
MBA 106 Economics and Management Decisions 4 units
Course Description
Presents many of the decision problems managers face and the economic analysis they need to guide these decisions. In the first half of the course, microeconomic tools are used to structure complicated decision problems about strategic subjects, such as production, pricing, and investment. Some of these decisions take place in uncertain environments, and the class addresses this uncertainty by making probabilistic forecasts and sequential decisions. Since most decisions depend on the structure of the industry in which a company operates, an additional goal is to distinguish different market structures and apply competitive strategies using game theory.
In the second half of the course, the focus shifts to the study of the national and global economic environments within which companies operate. The class identifies the drivers of fluctuations in key features of the economies, such as gross domestic product, inflation, interest rates, exchange rates. Students analyze and share economic developments in particular countries. Since governments play key roles in determining the fate of economies and companies, the final theme is the rationale for and efficacy of government policy tools.
MBA 107 Strategies for a Networked Economy 4 units
Course Description
This course is case-based and demonstrates the role of information technology in shaping business strategy and models. It provides an overview of the key technologies that are important in today's business environment and introduces organization and management concepts relating to the information technology functions. The course also illustrates the relationships between organizational performance and the ability to leverage knowledge assets.
MBA 108 Creating Value through Operations and Technology 4 units
Course Description
This course is case-oriented and is focused on topics of use to managers in any environment: process analysis, process improvement, and strategic operations decision-making. The course emphasizes the importance of effectiveness and efficiency and evaluates the potential trade-offs between them.
MBA 109 Competition, Innovation and Strategy 4 units
Course Description
This course draws on findings from a number of academic disciplines, especially economics, organization theory, and sociology, to build a fundamental understanding of how and why some f m s achieve and sustain superior performance. Successful strategy design and implementation require marketing, finance, and other areas. The course is designed to develop this integrative view of the firm and its environment, along with appropriate analytical skills. Global management is an important additional theme of the course: while many of the cases are US- based companies, students will be challenged to extend the conceptual framework to encompass global businesses and to apply any lessons learned to international contexts.
HCM 101 The American Health Care System:Implications for Management and Policy 4 units Course Description
This course explores the health care system in terms of the organizations, resources, and processes that constitute its structure and operations; the forces responsible for shaping it; and policies that influence its performance and will likely determine its future. Considering the complexity and dynamism of the health care environment, an understanding of these issues is essential for effective management of health care organizations. Without it, organizations must react defensively to environmental forces; with it, they can act strategically to anticipate those forces and potential shifts in public policy. The course draws upon multiple perspectives, including economics, finance, political science, sociology, management science, psychology, medicine, public health, epidemiology, public policy, ethics and law.
HCM 102 Human Resources, Ethics and Health Law 4 units
Course Description
This course surveys the complex issues facing Health Care Managers in areas of Human Resources, Ethics and Health Law. The human resource topics to be covered under this course includes employee and labor relations, physician compensation, contracting issues, quality of care, tort liability principles and antitrust in the industry. In addition, managers are provided with guidance in preventing and solving managerial and biomedical ethical problems. Other ethical topics covered in this course include business ethics versus health care ethics, conflicts of interest, allocation of scarce resources, confidentiality, abortion, and managed care. Topics in this course include: employee and labor relations, physician compensation, contracting issues, quality of care, tort liability principles, antitrust in the heath care industry, business ethics versus heath care ethics, conflicts of interest, allocation of scarce resources, confidentiality, abortion, and managed care.
HCM 103 Health Care Finance and Economics 4 units
Course Description
Using the methods of economics and finance, this course addresses the policy and financial issues in health insurance, hospital services, physician services, and related industries. The first part of this course is organized around the key relationships in health care and the incentives that affect each party's behavior. For example, the relationship between the physician and third party payer and the physician and insurer incentives those different payment systems create. The second part of the course explores health care organizations from a financial standpoint, providing students with the analytical framework and tools for making decisions about an organization's investments and financing. This course also addresses the short and long-term implications of the ongoing economic transformation of the health care industry, policy and financial issues in health insurance, hospital and physician services, and investments and financing.
HCM 104 Health Care Fraud & Abuse 4 units
Course Description
The complex business of health care finance and delivery is increasingly structured by reference to an array of federal regulatory and statutory requirements. For the reviewing of relationships among the providers and between providers and payers, the students must be familiar with the anti- kickback laws, the False Claims Act, Stark I & II, and RICO. This course examines the application of those laws in the context of commercial relationships, regulatory reviews, and criminal investigation and prosecutions. It also examines the burgeoning area of corporate compliance programs.
*Electives:
HCM 105 Anatomy of a Medical Malpractice Case 4 units
Course Description
This course provides students with the tools to prepare and try medical malpractice cases. Students under this course learn how to locate expert witnesses, prepare pleadings and also how to respond to discovery requests. Students will take simulated depositions of parties and experts. They prepare pretrial motions, and attend portions of an on-going medical malpractice trial, a trial call, and motion days. The students under this course have to demonstrate the competence in preparation of pleadings, discovery documents, and motions have to submit a research paper on a public policy issue related to malpractice law.
HCM 106 Bioethics & Public Policy 4 units
Course Description
Under this course students will explore federal and state efforts to develop public policy on ethical issues in medical treatment and research. The topics covered under this course includes the current controversies, including research with human subjects, genetic testing and screening. assisted reproductive technologies, cloning and stem cell research, and decisions about life-sustaining medical care. This course will also cover the historical and theoretical perspectives on these issues, the emphasis will be on the challenges facing policy makers accountable to multiple constituencies with vastly differing priorities and world views.
HCM 107 Drug Innovation, Regulation and Costs 4 units
Course Description
This course will examine the process and rationale for FDA regulation of drugs and medical devices, and examine the impact of regulation on the ability to develop innovative products, and the emerging issues about drug costs. The prospects for legislative change will be considered. Under this course the students will examine whether speeding up or changing the approval process will increase safety risks, whether reform is needed in the ability to market generic drugs while patent challenges are pending, whether direct-to-consumer advertising of prescription drugs increases costs or has other detriments. and whether there is a need for comparative efficacy testing for drugs. While the course will have a focus on regulatory policy issues, an exploration will also be made of the effort to control prescription drug costs through managed care programs, and in legislative proposals, and the impact of these measures on innovation and health. The policy towards the costs of AIDS drugs, and other life-saving drugs, in developing countries will be considered under this course.
HCM 108 Health Care Access and Payment 4 units
Course Description
This course examines 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. The course will cover the surveying issues of health coverage across a social spectrum including the uninsured, those covered by Medicare, Medicaid and other government programs, and the privately insured. The course focuses on financing, administrative and legal structures through which quality, cost and access are balanced. There will be further discussion on issues raised by the dominance of managed care systems of health finance and delivery, focusing on cost containment mechanisms. The course examines a range of statutory and common law devices employed to balance the interests of providers, payers and patients. It will survey such topics as tort claims against managed care plans, the "right" to health care, discrimination in health insurance, antitrust and fraud applications in health care finance and delivery, and the relationship between markets and regulation in health care delivery and finance.
HCM 109 Health Care Antitrust 4 units
Course Description
This course presents the fundamentals of antitrust law by review of the foundational case law and the basic antitrust statutes. The course then guides the students to apply these legal principles to developments in the health care industry with particular emphasis on mergers, acquisitions and consolidations, development of multi-provider networks and exclusion of providers within the health care industry. Finally, the course reviews traditional anti-trust defenses, and the various governmental policy statements on enforcement as they apply to current business activity within the health care industry.
HCM 110 Health Employment Issues 4 units
Course Description
This course covers the special issues involving health care professionals that arise in the health care delivery system. The organization will follow the three ways that health care professionals are employed by hospitals and other health care delivery organizations: First, the classic independent contractor relationship of medical staff to a hospital involves issues of the application of staff by-laws and legal controls of those by-laws. Second, the formation of professional corporations by medical professionals that contract with health care delivery organizations studies the three party relationships among health care professional, the PC, and the health care delivery system. Third, the direct employment of health care professionals by health care delivery organizations raises special legal questions of employment law.
HCM 111 Health Law 4 units
Course Description
This survey course introduces students to the major legal and policy issues surrounding the provision of health care. The students will study the organization and governance of nonprofit hospitals and other health care organizations, financing of care through public and private insurance programs, health care fraud and abuse, quality control in health care, confidentiality of medical information, informed consent, reproductive health care, medical decisions at the end of life, and medical research with human subjects. This course will also examine the means by which patients gain access to health care and through which sponsors of health coverage organize and compensate health care providers. It will include a study of private and public means of health insurance and different types of third party payers, including Medicare, Medicaid, and managed care organizations. The course will also include survey of the organization of hospitals and other health care entities and introduce students to the issues, laws, regulations and accreditation standards essential to understanding the structure and permitted functions of health care entities.
HCM 112 Medical Malpractice 4 units
Course Description
This course focuses on traditional principles underlying the medical malpractice law, using a practical and substantive approach to the subjection, focusing on the standard of care, expert-related issues, causation and damages relating or pertaining to medical malpractice actions.
HCM 113 Mental Health Law 4 units
Course Description
This course focuses on the use of governmental authority to restrict or deprive individuals with mental disorder of liberty or property in a variety of civil contexts. These interventions are intended to either prevent future harm to self/others or "incompetent" choices. The civil commitment, both inpatient and outpatient, of individuals with major mental illnesses are the main context studied. The commitment of sex offenders, the right to refuse psychiatric medication, the duty to warn and competency determinations will also be examined. To provide a foundation for the legal analysis, the nature and treatment of mental disorders will be summarily explored under this course.
HCM 114 Public Health Law 4 units
Course Description
This course examines the structure of public health law, with emphasis on government responsibility and power, individual rights, and the relationship between the law concerning population and individual health. Under this course the students study about the varied topics like the responses to threats of terrorism, infectious disease, environmental threats such as tobacco and lead, and privacy concerns.
HCM 115 Pharmaceutical and Medical Device Marketing and Compliance 4 units
Course Description
This course is intended to address the regulatory issues that pharmaceutical and medical device companies confront after drugs and devices have been approved by the FDA for market. The course will examine the pricing, marketing, reimbursement, anti-trust, and fraud and abuse issues that pharmaceutical and medical device companies must face. It will also touch on some intellectual property questions and privacy issues.
HCM 116 Health Privacy 4 units
Course Description
This course provides a comprehensive analysis of the Health Insurance, health privacy provisions, which pose substantial technology and privacy requirements for health plans, health care clearinghouses, and many health care providers. Under this course students will study about the Privacy Rule, the Transaction Rule, and an overview of electronic data interchange concepts as applied to health information. Students will also explore the statutory requirements for health privacy, as well as the developing body of case law in this area.
HCM 117 The Law of Death & Dying 4 units
Course Description
This course engages the student in an extensive study and analysis of empirical data, current statutes and cases as well as proposed changes to the law dealing with issues related to death and dying. Under this course the students will study about the alternative definitions of death, organ donation, withholding and withdrawal of death-prolonging and life-sustaining treatment, advance directives, patient demands for futile treatment, the cost of end-of-life care, wrongful living, and physician-assisted death.
HCM 118 Legal Medicine & Public Health 4 units
Course Description
This course undertakes an in-depth study of the classical discipline of legal medicine which includes consideration of the forensic sciences, legal principles and systems of death investigation, criminalistics, genetic markers and their use in court, and judicial receptivity to new scientific tests. The course then turns to consideration of the doctrinal boundaries and analytical methodology of American public health law. The course includes topics like the public health sciences, sources of authority for public health control, health information privacy, government support for science and medicine and control of research in science and medicine.
HCM 119 Making Health Care Decisions 4 units
Course Description
This course exposes students to medical, ethical and legal foundations and processes of health care decision-making. It seeks to expose medical and law students to each other's analytical methods, and to the clinical contexts in which health care decisions are made. The substantive topics under this course will include the doctrine of informed consent, advance directives, DNR orders, brain death, treatment termination, organ transplantation, competency determinations, palliative care, pediatric decision-making, conflict resolution, and the intersection of race, culture, socio-economics and decision-making.