What is Health Law?Health law describes the doctrine of law that involves a wide variety of sub-doctrine including contract law, tax law, corporations, technology, privacy, insurance and pension law, employment and labor law, public benefits law, torts, ethics, criminal law, administrative law, privacy, civil rights, reproductive rights, constitutional law, and statutory drafting and interpretation—even First Amendment religious liberty and freedom of speech concepts can be implicated in the field of health law.
Health care lawyers often provide guidance concerning third-party payor issues, HMO and insurance regulation, telemedicine, and health reform issues. They address risk management, informed consent, confidentiality, and bioethical issues including end-of-life decision-making, assisted reproduction, and health care decision-making issues. Lawyers represent health care providers before federal and state agencies that regulate the health care industry. Legal counsel assists health care providers and litigants with medical malpractice, fraud and abuse claims, antitrust issues, breach of contract disputes, intellectual property matters, joint-venture, Medicare and Medicaid reimbursement matters, and labor and employment disputes. Issues related to pharmaceutical regulation, product safety, clinical trials, and vaccine response are all related to discussions of health law and health care advocacy.
Health law spans many areas of social, cultural, political, and economic influence and intersectionality. It is a broad specialty because it covers a variety of legal disputes, irrespective of persons and challenges.