| Clients draw on our deep knowledge of the healthcare industry—its institutional structure, its competitive environment, and its regulatory framework. Our experience spans a spectrum of matters, including antitrust, mergers, FCA and other government investigations and litigation, private reimbursement matters, and breach of contract. | We work with insurers, hospitals, physician groups, and other providers, as well as their counsel.
Our experts and staff possess a deep knowledge of the regulatory framework and an understanding of the complex network of entities involved in the provision and coverage of healthcare. |
Our extensive network includes top experts from academia and industry.
Our extensive network includes top experts from academia and industry.
Gautam Gowrisankaran
Professor of Economics,
Columbia University;
Senior Advisor, Cornerstone Research
Gautam Gowrisankaran is an expert in industrial organization, healthcare economics, and energy and environmental economics. Professor Gowrisankaran has analyzed issues of market definition and market power, the competitive effects of mergers, and claims of attempted monopolization. He has also addressed allegations of tying, foreclosure, and other exclusionary practices arising in such industries as healthcare, consumer goods, high-tech products, payment services, and transportation.
An experienced expert witness, Professor Gowrisankaran has been retained by federal and state agencies as well as by private clients in numerous high-profile mergers, antitrust litigation matters, and consumer class actions. His trial testimony includes United States of America et al. v. JetBlue Airways Corporation and Spirit Airlines Inc.; United States et al. v. UnitedHealth Group Inc. and Change Healthcare Inc.; Sidibe v. Sutter Health; In re: Purdue Pharma L.P. et al.; and Federal Trade Commission v. Hackensack Meridian Health Inc. and Englewood Healthcare Foundation. He has consulted to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) on retail and technology issues and the Antitrust Division of the Department of Justice (DOJ) on airline matters and mergers in the healthcare space.
In his research, Professor Gowrisankaran conducts both theoretical and empirical studies of topics related to industrial organization and competition. He has particular expertise in industries that are highly regulated and exhibit rapid technological change, such as healthcare and energy, as well as markets in which prices are negotiated.
One focus of Professor Gowrisankaran’s recent research is energy, including renewable energy integration, electricity regulation in the presence of energy transitions, and enforcement of environmental laws. He has also analyzed a variety of issues in healthcare markets, such as hospital competition, the impact of countervailing health insurer market power, and the price impact of hospital mergers.
A prolific author, Professor Gowrisankaran has published research in leading economics journals, including the American Economic Review, Econometrica, and the Journal of Political Economy. He has served on the editorial boards of several academic journals, including the American Economic Review and the RAND Journal of Economics. In addition, Professor Gowrisankaran has written analyses for a legal audience, including in the Antitrust Law Journal. He has been honored with best paper awards and recommended by Lexology Index (formerly Who’s Who Legal) as a leading competition economist and consulting expert in the competition field.
Global Competition Review recognized Professor Gowrisankaran in its inaugural list of the world’s most important antitrust academics. He was also honored in Lexology’s 2022 Client Choice list.
Prior to joining the faculty at Columbia, Professor Gowrisankaran was a tenured professor of economics and the Peter and Nancy Salter Chair in Healthcare Management at the University of Arizona. He has held visiting academic appointments at Northwestern University, the University of Chicago, Yale University, and Harvard University, among others.
Professor Gowrisankaran serves on the U.S. Congressional Budget Office Health Advisory Panel. He is a research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) and a research fellow at the Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR).
Our extensive network includes top experts from academia and industry.
Laurence C. Baker
Professor of Health Policy,
Bing Professor of Human Biology,
Senior Fellow, Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research,
Stanford University;
Associate Chair for Education, Department of Health Policy,
Stanford School of Medicine;
Senior Advisor, Cornerstone Research
Laurence Baker is an expert in the areas of health economics, healthcare policy, and life sciences. Professor Baker studies the organization and economic performance of U.S. healthcare and pharmaceutical markets, with a focus on issues related to financial incentives, competition, pricing and provider payment, labor, and technology adoption. In the health insurance arena, he has expertise in private insurance, managed care, Medicare Part D, Medicare Advantage, and Medicaid.
Professor Baker has been retained as an expert witness in numerous healthcare and life sciences matters. He has testified in depositions and trials, on issues involving:
- Healthcare insurance competition
- Antitrust and intellectual property issues in life sciences matters, including alleged generic entry delay through reverse payments and other allegedly collusive agreements between drug manufacturers
- Alleged inappropriate use, or inappropriate pricing, of medical services and prescription drugs
- Mergers between hospitals and physician groups
- Alleged exclusionary contracting practices by health insurers and health providers
- Alleged collusive and no-poach labor agreements between health providers
- Regulatory issues in healthcare
Professor Baker has extensive experience addressing issues of class certification (of both direct and indirect purchasers) as well as evaluating liability and damages.
In his research, Professor Baker has examined the relationship between physician practice characteristics and competition and healthcare delivery, prices, and outcomes. He has also studied the effects of managed care insurance practices on the healthcare system; the impact of regulation on healthcare markets; the determinants and results of technological change in medicine; and patient safety in U.S. hospitals. In addition, Professor Baker has addressed topics related to physicians’ incomes and career choices and analyzed how the internet and email influence healthcare delivery and outcomes.
Professor Baker was awarded the ASHEcon Medal for his significant contributions to the field of health economics and has been elected to the National Academy of Medicine. He has twice been honored for excellence in teaching. His publications include articles in JAMA—The Journal of the American Medical Association, the New England Journal of Medicine, the RAND Journal of Economics, Health Services Research, and Health Affairs.
Our extensive network includes top experts from academia and industry.
Erin Trish
Associate Professor,
Department of Pharmaceutical and Health Economics,
Mann School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences,
Co-Director, Leonard D. Schaeffer Center for Health Policy and Economics,
University of Southern California
Erin Trish is an expert in pharmaceutical and healthcare economics. Her research focuses on the intersection of public policy and competition in healthcare and pharmaceutical markets, including Medicare, the No Surprises Act (NSA), the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), insurer and hospital market concentration, pharmaceutical pricing, and the role of pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs).
Professor Trish has served as an expert witness in multiple life sciences and healthcare matters and has both trial and deposition experience. She has provided expert testimony in arbitration and in litigation involving the False Claims Act, price fixing and market allocation, and killer acquisitions.
In addition, Professor Trish has testified before the U.S. Congress and in the California State Assembly, and presented her research at numerous federal agencies, including the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and the Congressional Budget Office.
In her research focused on the pharmaceutical industry, Professor Trish analyzes market structure, prescription drug expenditures, pharmacy networks, and firms’ financial incentives. She is a leading expert on brand and generic drug markets, PBMs, and the funding and benefit design of Medicare Part D, Medicaid, and commercial prescription drug insurance.
Professor Trish’s healthcare research addresses regulation and policy, market participants, and outcomes. Her expertise includes market concentration and vertical integration, payor-provider bargaining, out-of-network reimbursement for emergency care, commercial insurance, Medicare Advantage, and exchange market functioning.
Professor Trish publishes in leading health policy, health economics, and medical journals. Her work has appeared in the New England Journal of Medicine, Health Affairs, the American Journal of Managed Care, and the Journal of Health Economics, among others. She has won several research awards, notably the Seema S. Sonnad Emerging Leader in Managed Care Research Award, which recognizes early achievements in the field and potential for exceptional long-term contributions.
At USC, Professor Trish teaches executive-level courses in health policy and management at the Marshall School of Business. She also serves as a nonresident fellow in economic studies at the Brookings Institution.
Our extensive network includes top experts from academia and industry.
M. Kate Bundorf
J. Alexander McMahon Distinguished Professor of Health Policy and Management,
Sanford School of Public Policy,
Core Faculty Member, Duke-Margolis Center for Health Policy,
Duke University
Kate Bundorf is an expert on health insurance markets, and the economics of healthcare systems and healthcare delivery. In these contexts, Professor Bundorf has analyzed the determinants and effects of consumer choices, the impact of regulation, the interaction of public and private systems, incentives for insurers to improve healthcare quality, and the organization of provider markets. Her expertise extends to Medicare Advantage and features of the Affordable Care Act, such as risk adjustment, risk corridors, and reinsurance. She has served as an expert witness on healthcare matters, including cases with allegations of False Claims Act violations, reimbursement disputes. She has testified at deposition.
Professor Bundorf is a faculty research fellow at the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) and a board member of the Center for Health and Economy.
Her honors include the Annual Health Care Research Award from the National Institute for Health Care Management Foundation, and selection as a Fulbright Scholar.
Professor Bundorf’s research has been published in leading economics and health policy journals. She is a coeditor of the Journal of Health Economics and the International Journal of Health Economics and Management; and serves on the editorial boards of the the American Journal of Health Economics, and Health Services Research.
Prior to joining the faculty at Duke, Professor Bundorf was an associate professor of health research and policy at the Stanford University School of Medicine.
Healthcare Capabilities
Clients draw on our expertise in competition issues involving the healthcare sector, including hospitals and insurance providers. Our staff and experts address allegations of:
- Predatory and discriminatory pricing
- Price fixing by physicians’ associations or hospitals
- Price fixing of healthcare workers’ wages
- Exclusionary practices
- Monopolization
In our analyses, we define relevant markets, assessing existing market power and determining the competitive effects of mergers and acquisitions as well as allegedly anticompetitive behavior involving:
- Hospital systems
- Outpatient care facilities
- Physician services
- Insurers
When healthcare organizations merge, complicated issues arise among patients, providers, and insurers. Such mergers involve complex empirical analyses to assess competitive effects, including questions related to bargaining, quality of care, risk-sharing, and efficiencies.
Our staff and experts have experience in a variety of reimbursement-related matters on issues of sampling, liability, and damages. These cases include private reimbursement disputes between payors and healthcare providers, as well as False Claims Act, Anti-Kickback Statute, and other government audit and contracting matters brought against healthcare providers.
Our experience includes:
- Complex statistical sampling from a large number of claims and extrapolation of sample results to assess liability and damages issues
- Reimbursement disputes between providers and payors, including analysis of alleged unnecessary treatment and upcoding, and estimation of damages
- Analysis of usual and customary reimbursement rates for out-of-network providers
- False Claims Act and government audit matters involving alleged overpayments in Medicare Fee-for-Service, Medicare Advantage, and Medicaid
- False Claims Act matters involving false advertising allegations
- Fair market value analysis of payments for products and services, per the Anti-Kickback Statute
- Government contracting matters related to the Affordable Care Act, including risk-adjustment, risk corridors, and reinsurance
- Waiver of patient coinsurance and co-payments
We partner with physicians and medical billing experts to assess and integrate their opinions of medical necessity and claims coding into our damages and liability analyses.
Cornerstone Research provides class certification analyses in a wide range of healthcare cases, including antitrust and competition, managed care contracting, coverage disputes, reimbursement practices, and disputes related to alleged “surcharge fees” and “surprise medical billing.” Clients also seek our expertise in class certification analyses for cases involving claims of product liability, misrepresentation, and false advertising pertaining to medical coverage, healthcare benefits, and other healthcare products. We have addressed questions of common proof and common impact as well as questions of ascertainability and numerosity.
Clients rely on our decades of experience with complex cases requiring data management, integration, sampling, digitization, production, and analysis, including advanced empirical modeling and statistical techniques. Many healthcare matters involve analyzing large medical claims databases.
Cornerstone Research regularly analyzes databases containing hundreds of billions of records. We have the staff expertise and state-of-the-art, secure computing facilities to quickly and efficiently handle large volumes of sensitive healthcare data. This includes experience with data masking and anonymization as well as applying AI and machine learning to create structured data through supervised record linkage, resolving distinct entries to a common entity. We also have experience implementing state-of-the-art econometric techniques utilizing algorithmic methods.
Cornerstone Research’s expertise includes major price and claims databases, such as MarketScan, FAIR Health, and Medicare, as well as insurer-specific claims datasets, internal provider billing systems, Medicaid data, and other large discharge databases.
Featured Cases
Selected Professionals
Our staff consultants contribute expertise in economics, finance, accounting, and marketing, as well as business acumen, familiarity with the litigation process, and a commitment to provide outstanding support.
Featured Publications
How can we help you?
For more information or assistance with a specific matter, please contact us.