Course descriptions represent courses expected to be offered during the 2009-2010 academic year. While the School endeavors to offer as many of the courses as possible, not all courses are offered every semester. It is important to check with individual departments prior to scheduling classes to determine the availability of courses for any given semester.

The Wharton School and the University of Pennsylvania reserve the right to make changes affecting policies, fees, curricula, or any other matters announced here.

HCMG 845 Managed Care and the Industrial Organization of Health Care
Burns
Spring
This course, co-taught with Brad Fleugel of WellPoint, Inc., will focus on two interrelated topics: managed care and market structure. The section on managed care will cover strategic planning and marketing of managed care services, operational issues in developing a managed care network, actuarial issues, and the management of physician behavior. The section on health care market structure will analyze strategies of vertical integration and horizontal integration (M&As), and their attempt to alter the balance of power in local healthcare markets. The section will also analyze the operational issues in managing cost and quality in an integrated system, integration along the supply chain, and the performance of these systems.

HCMG 849 Financial Management of Health Institutions
Harrington
Fall
This course focuses on the application of financial analysis to investment, financing, and operating decisions in the health care sector. Analytical methods covered include traditional net present value analysis, decision tree analysis, real option valuation, comparable firm valuation, and product-line performance evaluation. Cases dealing with the biotechnology / pharmaceutical, medical device, health insurance / managed care, and hospital sectors allow students to apply these methods. The cases include: estimating the value of drugs in development, valuing a medical device company, optimal deal structure for recapitalizing a specialty pharmaceutical company, evaluating profitability of customer cohorts and associated strategy for a Medicare managed care organization, and evaluating product-line profitability and strategic financial alternatives for a hospital system. Each case is accompanied by background on relevant institutions and markets.

HCMG 852 Health Services Delivery: A Managerial Economic Approach
David
Spring
This course is designed to equip students with tools to understand and analyze problems in the rapidly changing health care delivery environment. It focuses on organizational and strategic issues in the delivery of health care in the hospital context. The course is divided into eight topic areas: 1) Shortages, substitutability and efficiency in hospitals' production, 2) The role of nonprofit health care providers, 3) The economics of hospitals and physicians' specialization, 4) Inpatient vs. outpatient care delivery, 5) Antitrust laws and regulation and their effects on hospital competition, 6) Marketing health services, 7) Defining and improving medical performance, and 8) Evidence-based medicine and the diffusion of technologies. The course will feature a number of guest speakers.

HCMG 854 Legal Aspects of Health Care
Rosoff/Field
Fall
(cross listed with HCMG 211-401)
This course offers a current and historical overview of the regulation of health care delivery in the U.S. It examines principles and practical applications of the laws that affect the operational decisions of health care providers, payors, and managers and that impact development of markets for health care products and services. Also considered are the social, moral, and ethical issues encountered in trying to balance the interests, needs and rights of individual citizens against those of society. For part of the term, the class will divide into two groups so that students can focus on their choice of (a) health care management anti-trust law, and regulation of the drug and the medical device industry or (b) selected issues of patients' rights, e.g., abortion, tratment of terminal patients, etc.

HCMG 859 Comparative Health Care Systems
Danzon
Fall
(Cross listed with HCMG 204-401)
This course examines the structure of Health Care Mgmt. & Economics in different countries, focusing on financing, reimbursement, delivery systems and adoption of new technologies. We study the relative roles of private sector and public sector insurance and providers, and the effect of system design on cost, quality, efficiency and equity of medical services. Some issues we address are normative: Which systems and which public/private sector mixes are better at achieving efficiency and equity? Other issues are positive: How do these different systems deal with the tough choices, such as decisions about new technologies? Our main focus is on the systems in four large OECD countries-Germany, Canada, Japan, and the United Kingdom-but we also look at other countries with interesting systems- including Italy, Chile, and Singapore and developing countries such as India. We will draw lessons for the U.S. from foreign experience and vice versa.

HCMG 863 Management & Economics of the Pharmaceutical, Biotech & Medical Device Industries
Danzon
Spring
This course provides an overview of the management, economic and policy issues facing the pharmaceutical, biotechnology, and medical device industries. The course perspective is global, with emphasis on the U.S. as the largest and most profitable market. Critical issues we will examine include: R&D intensive cost structure and rapid technological change; biotechnology and genomics startups and alliances with the pharma industry; a complex global marketplace in which prices are regulated in most countries and customers include governments and insurers, as well as physicians, pharmacists and consumers now reachable through DTC; intense and evolving M&A, including mergers, joint ventures, and complex alliances; government regulation of every business function: R&D, pricing, manufacturing, and promotion; and global products and multinational firms. We use industry and Wharton experts from various disciplines to address these issues.

HCMG 900 Proseminar in Health Services Research
Harrington
Spring
This seminar will explore empirical methods in health care research with an emphasis on applications in health care economics and finance. The methods covered include estimation with panel data, program evaluation models, qualitative and limited dependent variable models, stochastic frontier models, estimation with count data, and duration models. The readings consist of a blend of classic and recent empirical studies, including articles on the demand for health care and health insurance, tests for moral hazard and adverse selection, and estimation of provider cost functions. Students are required to conduct an econometric analysis of some issue within the health care field. With the permission of the instructor, the seminar is open to doctoral students from departments other than Health Care Management & Economics.

HCMG 901 Seminar in Health Care Cost Benefit and Cost Effectiveness Analysis
Pauly
Fall
The purpose of this doctoral level course is to investigate the theory and practice of cost-benefit and cost-effectiveness analysis as applied to health care. The three techniques to be examined are cost-effectiveness analysis with single dimensional outcomes, cost effectiveness analysis with multiple attributes (especially in the form of Quality Adjusted Life Years), and economic cost benefit analysis. Valuation of mortality and morbidity relative to other goods will be emphasized. Students will be expected to develop written critiques of articles in the literature, and to design a new application of one of the techniques as a term project.

HCMG 902 Seminar in Implementing and Sustaining Innovation
Kimberly
Fall
This seminar will examine in depth the challenge of implementing and sustaining innovation in organizations. The challenge of change involves understanding what it takes to get new programs, policies, technologies and/or practices implemented effectively and, once implemented, sustained. To use an imperfect human analogy, it involves both getting the right organ hooked up using the appropriate surgical techniques and making sure that rejection does not take place. Examples of failed or imperfect implementation abound, and myriad questions arise as to why. Each student in this seminar will be required to delve into the literature in a particular discipline and/or field (health care, criminal justice, education, etc.) and write a paper summarizing the state of knowledge in that discipline/field, identifying gaps in what is known, and suggesting a series of research initiatives that might productively address those gaps. The paper should be of publishable quality in a journal of relevance to the student's career trajectory. This is a university-wide seminar and is intended to draw students from a variety of schools and disciplinary orientations. Enrollment is limited. Permission of the instructor is required.

HCMG 903 Economics of Health Care and Policy
Kolstad
Fall
This course applies basic economic concepts to analyze the health care market and evaluate health policies. The course begins with an analysis of the demand for health, the derived demand for medical care and the demand for health insurance. The second part of the course examines the supply of medical care by physicians and hospitals, medical technology, and the role of managed care organizations. The implication of adverse selection, moral hazard, externalities, and asymmetric information will be explored. The third part of the course examines the rationale for government intervention in medical markets as well as the effectiveness and efficiency of various health policies, including: Medicare, Medicaid, price regulation of hospitals, physician payment reform, medical malpractice, uncompensated care, and physician manpower planning.