Madison, Kristin M. - School of Law

Kristin M. Madison

Professor of Law and Health Sciences; Associate Dean for Academic Programs

Education

University of California, Berkeley, BA 1992
Yale University, JD 2000
Stanford University, PhD 2001

Bio

Professor Madison holds a joint appointment in the School of Law and the Bouvé College of Health Sciences. Most of her teaching and research activities are in the areas of health law, health policy and health economics.

After receiving her undergraduate degree in economics from the University of California, Berkeley, Professor Madison worked for two years as a research assistant with the health care consulting firm now known as the Lewin Group. She received a JD from Yale Law School and a PhD in economics from Stanford University before joining the faculty of the University of Pennsylvania Law School in 2001. She joined the Northeastern faculty in 2011. In addition to her joint appointment, she has a courtesy appointment in the Department of Economics and is an affiliated faculty member of the School of Public Policy and Urban Affairs.

Much of Professor Madison’s work evaluates the implications of health care quality reporting and related trends for patients, providers and regulators. In Regulating Health Care Quality in an Information Age, Professor Madison argues that the health care information revolution will produce a shift from more traditional market-displacing regulation to more market-oriented regulatory approaches. In Hospital Mergers in an Era of Quality Improvement, she examines the implications of quality measurement for health care antitrust policy. In The Law and Policy of Quality Reporting, she explores the theory and practice of health care quality reporting and regulatory responses to reporting deficiencies. In From HCQIA to the ACA: The Evolution of Reporting as a Quality Improvement Tool, she explains how two different types of reporting, health care quality reporting and physician-related reporting to the National Practitioner Data Bank, could be combined to improve health care quality In Donabedian’s Legacy, Professor Madison documents the evolution of health care quality-related health law and policy.

Professor Madison’s articles, including Building a Better Laboratory: The Federal Role in Promoting Health System Experimentation and Health Regulators as Data Stewards, extend her previous work by focusing on the ways health regulators generate, use and facilitate others’ use of data.

Professor Madison has also examined law and policy related to employers’ use of health incentives. In work published in the Journal of Law, Medicine and Ethics, the Journal of Health Politics, Policy & Law, JAMA and the Health Affairs Blog, she considers the many legal and ethical issues that arise when employers adopt wellness programs that tie financial rewards or penalties to tobacco use, body mass index levels or other health-related factors.

Fields of Expertise

Contracts
Economics and the Law
Health Law and Policy

Selected Works

- “Regional Economic Conditions and Preventable Hospitalization Among Older Patients with Diabetes,” 60 Medical Care 212 (2022) (co-author).
- “Regional Market Factors and Patient Experience in Primary Care,” 26 American Journal of Managed Care 438 (2020) (co-author).
- “State-Level Community Benefit Regulation and Nonprofit Hospitals’ Provision of Community Benefits,” 43 Journal of Health Politics, Policy and Law 229 (2018) (co-author).
- “Health Care Quality Reporting: A Failed Form of Mandated Disclosure?,” 13 Indiana Health Law Review 310 (2016).
- “The Risks Of Using Workplace Wellness Programs To Foster A Culture Of Health,” 35 Health Affairs 2068 (2016).
- “Using Reporting Requirements to Improve Employer Wellness Incentives and Their Regulation,” 39 Journal of Health Politics, Policy & Law 1013 (2014).
- “Health Regulators as Data Stewards,” 92 North Carolina Law Review 1605 (2014).
- “Building a Better Laboratory: The Federal Role in Promoting Health System Experimentation,” 41 Pepperdine Law Review 765 (2014).
- “Smoking, Obesity, Health Insurance, and Health Incentives in the Affordable Care Act,” 310 JAMA 143 (2013) (co-authored).
- “Donabedian’s Legacy: The Future of health Care Quality Law & Policy,” 10(2) Indiana Health Law Review 325 (2013).
- “From HCQIA to the ACA: The Evolution of Reporting as a Quality Improvement Tool,” 33 Journal of Legal Medicine 63 (2012).
- “The Law, Policy & Ethics of Employers’ Use of Financial Incentives to Improve Health ,” 39 Journal of Law, Medicine and Ethics 450 (2011) (co-author).
- “Rethinking Fraud Regulation by Rethinking the Health Care System,” 32 Hamline Journal of Public Law & Policy 411 (2011).
- “Patients as “Regulators”?: Patients’ Evolving Influence Over Health Care Delivery ,” 31 Journal of Legal Medicine 9 (2010).
- “Written Informed-Consent Statutes and HIV Testing,” 37 American Journal of Preventive Medicine 57 (2009) (co-author).
- “The Law and Policy of Health Care Quality Reporting ,” 31 Campbell Law Review 215 (2009).
- “Hospital Mergers in an Era of Quality Improvement ,” 7 Houston Journal of Health Law & Policy 265 (2007).
- “Regulating Health Care Quality in an Information Age ,” 40 University of California-Davis Law Review 1577 (2007).
- “ERISA and Liability for Provision of Medical Information ,” 84 North Carolina Law Review 471 (2006).
- “The Residency Match: Competitive Restraints in an Imperfect World ,” 42 Houston Law Review 759 (2005).
- “Multihospital Systems and Patient Treatments, Expenditures, and Outcomes,” 39 Health Services Research 749 (2004).
- “Hospital-Physician Affiliations and Patient Treatments, Expenditures, and Outcomes,” 39 Health Services Research 257 (2004).
- “Introduction to Part III (Transparency and Economics: Health Care Costs and Billing),” in Transparency in Health and Health Care in the United States, ed. H.G. Lynch et al (forthcoming 2019).
- “Health Policy and Regulation,” in Shortell and Kaluzny’s Health Care Management: Organization, Design, and Behavior, Sixth Edition, ed. P. Jacobson et al. (Cengage, 2012, 7th edition forthcoming 2019).
- “Legal & Policy Issues in Measuring and Improving Quality,” in The Oxford Handbook of US Healthcare Law, ed. I. Cohen et al (Oxford University Press, 2017).
- “Defragmenting Health Care Delivery Through Quality Reporting,” in The Fragmentation of U.S. Health Care: Causes and Solutions, ed. E. Elhauge (Oxford, 2010).
- “Quality Regulation in the Information Age: Challenges for Medical Professionalism,” in Medical Professionalism in the New Information Age, ed. D. Rothman et al. (Rutgers University Press, 2010) (co-author).
- “Should Employers Be Allowed to Require Genetic Test Results?,” News@Northeastern (March 22, 2017).
- “The EEOC’s Role In Reshaping Wellness Programs,” Health Affairs Blog (March 17, 2016).
- “The ACA, The ADA, And Wellness Program Incentives,” Health Affairs Blog (May 13, 2015).