Christine Burke Worthen | Epstein Becker & Green P.C.

Health care providers, payers, digital health companies, and investors call on attorney Christine Burke Worthen for legal and strategic advice as they navigate complex regulatory and business challenges in the continuously evolving health care delivery and reimbursement landscape.

Her practical guidance enables clients across the health care ecosystem—health systems, hospitals, physician practices, digital health companies, behavioral health providers, third-party administrators, health plans, and investors—to implement both short- and long-term strategies that align with their organizational goals.

Christine possesses a wealth of experience working on matters concerning Medicare reimbursement, Medicare Advantage, participation in CMS Innovation Center payment models, managed Medicaid, managed care contract negotiations, and value-based payment arrangements with commercial payers, self-insured employers, and Medicare Advantage plans. She provides counsel on the regulatory, operational, and financial considerations necessary for maneuvering through the changing payment environment, including various forms of risk-based payment models, price transparency, revenue cycle and payment integrity, clinically integrated network development and value-based enterprise models, risk adjustment, and provider compensation arrangements.

New market entrants rely on Christine for assistance in establishing compliant care delivery models across markets, whether through traditional brick-and-mortar models, home-based models, or virtual models of care, and transforming innovative ideas into reimbursable strategies. Investors rely on Christine for assistance with evaluating the opportunities for optimizing payer contracts and network relationships to achieve sustainable financial performance and regulatory due diligence in transactions.

Christine also advises on other areas of concern for payers, investors, and providers, such as health care fraud and abuse compliance, HIPAA/Part 2 compliance, licensing, mental health parity compliance, and payer disputes.

Beyond her health care practice, Christine provides ERISA counsel to employers regarding their defined benefit and defined contribution retirement plans, as well as self-insured and fully insured welfare benefits plans. She has represented clients in government audits conducted by the IRS and the U.S. Department of Labor.

Before joining Epstein Becker Green, Christine was a partner in the health care practice of a national law firm. She previously served as Vice President and Senior Counsel at a health system in Maine. Earlier in her career, Christine was a partner and chair of the Healthcare Services Practice Group in a regional law firm’s Portland (Maine) and Boston offices.

Christen Linke Young | The Brookings Institution

Christen Linke Young is a visiting fellow with Brookings’ Center on Health Policy. She is a health policy expert with 15 years of service in federal and state government, most recently serving in the Biden White House as the Deputy Assistant to the President for Health and Veterans Affairs.

Christen works on a wide range of health policy issues, including pricing of prescription drugs, expanding access to health insurance coverage, and supporting our public health institutions to prevent disease and promote population health.

She previously served as the Deputy Secretary of Health and Human Services in North Carolina and held several health policy roles in the Obama administration. She holds a J.D. from Yale Law School and B.S. from Stanford University and resides in Washington, D.C. with her husband and two young children.

Zachary L. Baron | Georgetown University Law Center

Zachary Baron is a director of the Center for Health Policy and Law at the O’Neill Institute and is an adjunct professor at the McCourt School of Public Policy. He has also served as an adjunct professor at Georgetown Law. He focuses on providing technical assistance for policymakers and public education on health policy legal issues with an emphasis on access to coverage, affordability, transparency, and equity.

Prior to joining the O’Neill Institute, Baron served as health counsel for the Committee on Ways and Means in the U.S. House of Representatives, where his portfolio included health and tax matters, such as coverage provisions under the Affordable Care Act (ACA), surprise billing, and the private health insurance market. He also led congressional investigations on discrimination in the child welfare system, the coronavirus pandemic, and private equity’s expansion in the health care system.

Baron previously served as senior counsel for the Energy and Commerce Committee concerning legal and policy issues related to access to reproductive health care, and as special counsel to the Ranking Member of the Senate Judiciary Committee during a pending Supreme Court nomination. His additional past government experience includes working on regulations and guidance implementing provisions of the ACA at the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services.

Baron also served as an attorney in private practice, handling high profile litigation disputes as well as health regulatory and antitrust matters.

Baron received his J.D. from the University of California, Berkeley, School of Law, and his B.A. from the University of California, Los Angeles.

Session I – What’s Ahead for the Health Insurance Marketplace: Understanding CMS’s 2025 Proposed Rule | 1:00pm – 2:00pm

• General summary of proposed rule
• Issues that prompted the Proposed Rule
• What may/may not be finalized
• Takeaways from ongoing discussions on the Hill that may impact the Final Rule

Break | 2:00pm – 2:10pm

Session II – Legal Trends and Recent ACA Policy Actions | 2:10pm – 3:10pm

• Legal issues raised by the rule
• Past ACA litigation
• Broader administrative law trends
• Intersections between congressional oversight and litigation