We are delighted to welcome two new faculty members and one new staff member: Karen Handorf, Julia Burleson, and Amanda Gabrielle Concepcion.
Karen Handorf, Full Professor of the Practice
Karen L. Handorf, J.D. is a Full Professor of the Practice at CHIR, focusing on the application of ERISA to employer sponsored health insurance, including fiduciary status of service providers, application of ERISA’s fiduciary standards to health plan fiduciaries, cost containment, service provider claims payment, service provider fee transparency, and plan participant protections.
From 1982 until 2007, she worked for the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL), providing ERISA litigation and counseling support to the Employee Benefit Security Administration (EBSA). In 2007, she entered private practice where, among other things, she represented health plan participants and fiduciaries in litigation challenging the fiduciary status of third-party administrators (“TPAs”) and TPA practices relating to plan claims data access, undisclosed fees, cross-plan offsetting, claims adjudication and mental health parity. Ms. Handorf also advised employers and other plan sponsors on their ERISA fiduciary duties with respect to their administrative service agreements and ongoing duty to monitor their service providers.
Ms. Handorf has testified before the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Education & the Workforce, Subcommittee on Health, Employment, Labor and Pensions on “ERISA’s 50th Anniversary: The Path to Higher Quality, Lower Cost Health Care.” She has also testified before the DOL ERISA Advisory Council on the impact of TPA practices on health insurance claims.
Ms. Handorf received her J.D. from the University of Wisconsin at Madison and her undergraduate degree from the University of Wisconsin – River Falls.
Julia Burleson, Research Fellow
Julia Burleson, MSPH is a Research Fellow at CHIR focusing on access to health care services, provider billing practices, and the affordability of health insurance coverage.
Before joining CHIR, Julia worked as a Social Science Research Analyst through the Presidential Management Fellow program at the Center for Consumer Information and Insurance Oversight (CCIIO) within the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. There, she primarily conducted research to help develop regulations for provisions of the No Surprises Act related to consumer protections. Julia has previously worked on research projects with the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health focusing on HIV prevention in Sub-Saharan Africa, vaccine messaging in India, and the validity and reliability of adherence measures for nutrition, HIV, and diabetes medications.
She received B.A.s in Public Health and Economics from Johns Hopkins University, and a Masters of Science in International Health from Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.
Amanda Gabrielle Concepcion, Research Assistant
Amanda Gabrielle Concepcion is a Research Assistant at CHIR where she supports three separate grants focusing on Medicare Advantage, facility fees, and rapid federal policy analysis.
Amanda recently earned a B.S. in Data Science from American University, with a minor in Public Health and a Certificate in Advanced Leadership Studies. Throughout her undergraduate career, she applied data-driven approaches to advance public health initiatives and health policy, with a focus on historically marginalized communities.
As a Policy and Quality Intern at the Association for Community Affiliated Plans, Amanda contributed to quality management initiatives aimed at strengthening Medicare, Medicaid, and Marketplace programs while advancing their health equity agenda. She has also served as a John R. Lewis Undergraduate Public Health Scholar at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in collaboration with Columbia University and worked as a Data Science Intern at the University of Southern California.