Events
1104 Blockley Hall (Note: Virtual attendees can join by accessing this link: https://upenn.zoom.us/j/95740259034.)
Health Policy Research Seminar: LJ Ristovskam, PhD, Assistant Professor of Public Affairs, University of Texas-Austin
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2026-01-08 10:00:00
2026-01-08 11:00:00
America/New_York
Health Policy Research Seminar: LJ Ristovskam, PhD, Assistant Professor of Public Affairs, University of Texas-Austin
Co-sponsored by the Opportunity of Health Lab
Topic: "Informative Ordeals in Healthcare: Prior Authorization of Drugs in Medicaid."
About the Talk: Health insurers frequently impose supply-side policies in the form of ‘prior authorization’ to manage healthcare spending. Prior authorization requires providers to fill out paperwork before treatment is eligible for coverage. The stated purpose of these policies is to reduce healthcare spending by encouraging the use of lower-cost treatments of similar quality, and to ensure treatment complies with established guidelines. However, there are concerns that prior authorization may discourage needed care. Using all-payer claims data from Massachusetts in 2009-2013, we estimate the effect of prior authorization on the use of specific drugs in MassHealth, the state Medicaid fee-for-service program. Using difference-in-differences estimation, we compare Medicaid beneficiaries affected by changes in prior authorization requirements to individuals in plans of a major commercial insurer unaffected by these policy changes. We find that prior authorizations lead to large reductions in utilization of drugs that have clear substitutes. These reductions are fully offset by increases in utilization of cheaper but equally effective drugs. However, when clear substitutes are not available, there are reductions in utilization that do not lead to substitution to similar drugs. Prior authorization reduces both high- and low-value use of drugs, suggesting that it is not well targeted.
About the Speaker: Ljubica Ristovska is an Assistant Professor at the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin. She received her Ph.D. in Economics from Harvard University in 2023. Prior to joining LBJ, she was a postdoctoral associate at the Tobin Center for Economic Policy at the Economics Department at Yale University. Her research focuses on health economics, particularly understanding and improving allocation of treatments in health care, as well as the organization and productivity of health care teams. She also has ongoing work examining socio-economic determinants of health and medical spending.
1104 Blockley Hall (Note: Virtual attendees can join by accessing this link: https://upenn.zoom.us/j/95740259034.)
Penn Medical Ethics
Hybrid: RCH B102AB, Richards Bldg., 3700 Hamilton Walk (and virtual via Zoom)
Research Ethics & Policy Series (REPS): "Research Issues Arising in Alzheimer’s Disease Related Dementias" - Jason Karlawish, MD
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2026-01-13 12:00:00
2026-01-13 13:00:00
America/New_York
Research Ethics & Policy Series (REPS): "Research Issues Arising in Alzheimer’s Disease Related Dementias" - Jason Karlawish, MD
Research Issues Arising in Alzheimer’s Disease Related Dementias
Jason Karlawish, MD
Professor of Medicine, Medical Ethics & Health Policy, and Neurology
Co-Director, Penn Memory Center
University of Pennsylvania
Dr. Jason Karlawish is a professor of medicine, medical ethics and health policy, and neurology at the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine. He is board-certified in geriatric medicine. He was educated at Northwestern University, the Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions, and the University of Chicago.
Dr. Karlawish is a Senior Fellow of the Leonard Davis Institute of Health Economics, Senior Fellow of the Penn Center for Public Health Initiatives, fellow of the University of Pennsylvania’s Institute on Aging, director of the Penn Program on Precision Medicine for the Brain (P3MB), Co-Associate Director of the Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center, and co-director of the Penn Memory Center. He is also director of the Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center’s Outreach, Recruitment and Education Core and the center’s Research Education Component.
His research focuses on aging, neuroethics, and policy. He has investigated issues in dementia drug development, informed consent, quality of life, paradoxical lucidity and theory of mind in dementia, research and treatment decision-making, and voting by persons living with dementia.
More detail to follow.
Registration required; Lunch provided.
Streaming available via Zoom.
Hybrid: RCH B102AB, Richards Bldg., 3700 Hamilton Walk (and virtual via Zoom)
Penn Medical Ethics
Virtual, via Zoom
Penn Bioethics Seminar (PBS): "Organ Diversion or Match Run Deviation? Ethical Considerations in Allocation Out of Sequence" - Andrew M. Courtwright, MD, PhD
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2026-01-27 12:00:00
2026-01-27 13:00:00
America/New_York
Penn Bioethics Seminar (PBS): "Organ Diversion or Match Run Deviation? Ethical Considerations in Allocation Out of Sequence" - Andrew M. Courtwright, MD, PhD
Organ Diversion or Match Run Deviation? Ethical Considerations in Allocation Out of Sequence
Andrew M. Courtwright, MD, PhD
Clinician, Division of Pulmonary Medicine
Adjunct Professor, University of Utah Department of Philosophy
University of Utah Health
The rise of Allocation Out of Sequence (AOOS) in organ transplantation in the United States has raised significant ethical concerns. By the end of 2024, 20% of kidneys were transplanted out of the standard match sequence, drawing regulatory scrutiny. Critics argue that AOOS amounts to organ diversion: it fails to prevent organ nonuse, does not address underlying inefficiencies in organ allocation, lacks transparency, and worsens transplant-related disparities.
In this talk, Dr. Courtwright discusses the factors contributing to the expansion of AOOS and evaluates the normative arguments for and against its use. Drawing on a constructivist framework, he argues that AOOS violates the expectation that allocation policies be grounded in collective agreement. Dr. Courtwright identifies considerations that should inform Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network policy revisions, emphasizing the need for shared norms to ensure procedural legitimacy.
Virtual, via Zoom
Penn Medical Ethics
Colonial Penn Center Auditorium
HP X LDI Research Seminar: Riley League, PhD, MPH, Assistant Professor of Finance, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
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2026-01-29 12:00:00
2026-01-29 13:00:00
America/New_York
HP X LDI Research Seminar: Riley League, PhD, MPH, Assistant Professor of Finance, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
Riley League is an Assistant Professor of Finance at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign Gies College of Business. His research interests lie in health economics and industrial organization, with a focus on how administrative burdens shape the delivery, cost, and outcomes of health care in the United States. He also conducts research on the dialysis industry, where he and his coauthors examine the significant influence of financial, regulatory, and legal incentives.
He holds a courtesy appointment in the University of Illinois Department of Economics and is a Faculty Research Fellow at the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER). Prior to joining the faculty, he was a Postdoctoral Fellow in Health and Aging Research at the NBER, following the completion of his PhD in Economics at Duke University in May 2023.
Colonial Penn Center Auditorium
Penn Medical Ethics
Colonial Penn Center Auditorium
HP X CHIBE X LDI Research Seminar: Liz Fowler, JD, PhD, Former Director of the CMMI, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services
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2026-02-03 12:00:00
2026-02-03 13:00:00
America/New_York
HP X CHIBE X LDI Research Seminar: Liz Fowler, JD, PhD, Former Director of the CMMI, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services
Dr. Liz Fowler is a nationally recognized expert in federal health policy and a visionary leader with a proven record of success in both public and private sector executive roles. Most recently, Dr. Fowler was Deputy Administrator and Director of the Innovation Center at the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS). In that role, she was responsible for advancing innovative payment and care delivery models in Medicare and Medicaid to promote value-based care on a national scale. Under her leadership, the CMS Innovation Center launched a new strategy focused on accountable care and designed, announced, and administered 37 payment and care delivery reform models impacting nearly 200,000 hospitals, physicians and 57 million patients between 2022 to 2024. These value-based payment models have provided an important testing ground and scaling opportunity for innovative start-ups and health care disrupters.
Prior to leading the Innovation Center, she was Executive Vice President of programs at The Commonwealth Fund and Vice President for Global Health Policy at Johnson & Johnson. In 2011-2012, she served as special assistant to President Obama on health care and economic policy at the National Economic Council to implement the Affordable Care Act (ACA). As Chief Health Counsel at the Senate Finance Committee, she played a major role in the drafting and passage of the ACA in 2010, and she also played a key role drafting the 2003 Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement and Modernization Act (MMA).
Dr. Fowler has over 25 years of experience in health policy and health services research. She earned a bachelor’s degree from the University of Pennsylvania, a PhD from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, and a law degree (JD) from the University of Minnesota. She is admitted to the bar in Maryland, the District of Columbia, and the U.S. Supreme Court. Dr. Fowler is a Fellow of the inaugural class of the Aspen Health Innovators Fellowship and was elected to the National Academy of Medicine in 2022.
Colonial Penn Center Auditorium
Penn Medical Ethics
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