Shaw's Eco-Logic

This HND piece focuses on proposed solutions to fix healthcare, and then looks at Haven—the new healthcare company formed by Amazon, Berkshire Hathaway, and JPMorgan Chase. Not much as been heard from Haven since its founding in 2018, but it will supposedly first concentrate on the healthcare needs of the 1.2 million combined employees of the parent companies.

As to "fixing" healthcare, most of the proposals involve making it easier to pay for, as well as all sorts of ideas to make it cheaper and more efficient. But, as smart as the folks behind Haven's parent companies may be, healthcare is a far more difficult business than what created the fortunes of these masters of the universe.

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This HND piece discusses how healthcare products are marketed, both to healthcare professionals and direct to the consumer. We first introduce the immense size of this market, which is valued at a staggering $1.5 trillion.

As you might imagine, pharmaceutical drugs comprise 10 percent of that—the biggest single sector. But even those smaller sectors, which make up "only" 2 percent of this market still account for a huge amount of business. Thus, a fortune is spent on advertising, with marketers vitally interested in what campaigns are really working. To that end, we highlight a powerful new tool.

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This HND piece examines the inherent conflict between health insurers and healthcare providers. A number of examples are given, then we segue into the matter of free premium content. Since website publishers are constantly looking for more material, what could be better than high-quality pre-written content—free of charge?

The thing is, though, whoever uses the material has to give attribution, but sometimes this is very subtle. As a result, fairly biased stuff can be proffered, all under the guise of a "neutral" website. And, with millions of people searching for health information on the Web, what could possibly go wrong?

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This HND piece begins by defining "branding," and then goes into some of the ways that physicians and hospitals can create a unique name and image for their enterprise. Fortunately, this is a bit easier to accomplish now, compared to the days before Medicare and group insurance.

A key strategy is to change the focus from "What should we do?" to "What do our patients need?" Related to this is the precept of disrupting the notion of "patient loyalty." Sure, back in the day, before everything was controlled by third party payers, such loyalty was essentially a given, assuming the patient didn't move out of the area, and he was treated right. But now, insurance coverages can change, and patients can be lost in an instant.

We then touch on the importance of creating a logo. This can apply to group practices, as well as larger clinics and hospitals.

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You'll love this one...put together by a friend of mine from memory.  Yes, back in the 1980s he saw a slide show, and it must have seared itself into his brain.  In that era, these courses cost thousands of dollars.  We now bring it to you FREE!

Over at the Mike's Comments.