Nov. 3, 2025
Story by Gracie Hedenberg, chscommunications@missouri.edu
Kate Karpinski’s love for public health began during a hands-on high school program, which enabled her to see the real-time effects of public policy on family medicine, public health initiatives like vaccines, and obstetrics and gynecology care. Now, she works in the Medicaid Fraud Control Unit at the Missouri Attorney General’s office with dreams of becoming a health care lawyer.
The public health major from Bentonville, Arkansas, entered the health care field with the same goal as many others: to help people lead healthy lives. While shadowing certified nursing assistants in family medicine and at an OB-GYN clinic, she saw how shifting policies affected health care opportunities and how public health initiatives, like COVID-19 vaccine programs, directly impacted people’s well-being.
“I realized how much of medicine is policy; those are two very heavily intertwined and intersectional disciplines,” Karpinski said. “Seeing that interaction during COVID, I was like, ‘Wow, there’s a lot of power in knowing policy and knowing the law because that can absolutely shape what people are doing in medicine and in health care.’”
After experiencing this crash course on policy in action, Karpinski couldn’t shake the feeling that a career in policy would empower her to improve people’s health at large. It also led her to the Mizzou College of Health Sciences, which offers a public health bachelor’s degree program, health certifications like CHES, and numerous hands-on learning opportunities.
Since day one, Karpinski has been involved in on-campus activities and programs designed to bring her goals into reach. She plans to attend law school, so she joined the Missouri Students Association as an academic senator for the College of Health Sciences and works behind the scenes in student government while advocating for important causes. The former high school class president then worked her way up to becoming MSA’s chief justice, focusing on internal organization.
Taking things to another level
Karpinski’s first-hand view of government advanced from the college level to the federal stage when she worked in Washington, D.C., for 10 weeks through the MU Kinder Scholars program. During her time in Washington, she worked for the Alliance for Health Policy, a nonprofit organization that educates leaders in health policy to give them a more well-rounded perspective on health care issues and legislation.
When a Kinder classmate mentioned an opportunity to work with the Missouri Attorney General’s office in the Medicaid Fraud Control Unit, Karpinski seized the opportunity to learn about state-level health policy — particularly as that knowledge would be useful in law school down the line.
Missouri’s Medicaid Fraud Control Unit investigates cases of Medicaid fraud from both health care providers and Medicaid recipients, ensuring any fraudulently used funds are returned to the system to help people pay for the health care they need. Though these cases of fraud sometimes reach the Missouri court system, the job is far from a courtroom drama; Karpinski said the team spends hours investigating fraud cases before they ever go to prosecution.
“We leave no stone unturned,” she said. “You have to do your due diligence to make sure you have a case before you upend people’s lives in the court of law. It has been really interesting to see our investigators’ thoroughness when going through everything.”
A wealth of experiences
From sitting in on interviews with Medicaid providers to learning how cases are built, this internship has offered a new perspective on legal procedures as well as health policy. Karpinski says those experiences, including her time in the Missouri Attorney General’s Office, have helped reveal the prevalence of public health in day-to-day life.
“Everything is related to public health in some way,” she said. “It helps me make sense of the world because there are so many things that we do to ensure the health and safety of people; it’s so beautiful to see them in the world. I see things in cities, institutions and buildings and know that it is because of public health work and research, and that it is there for one reason: to keep people safe and healthy. It restores my faith in the world.”
When she graduates, Karpinski wants to use her Mizzou education, internship experiences and future law degree to influence health on a large scale.
“Health is such a blessing for everyone to have,” she said. “If I can do that in a more permanent capacity by changing the laws and establishing really solid policies, that will have a longer-lasting effect for future generations to have this access to health care and to health.”