Ethical Issues Of Health Care Marketing

This paper pertains to the marketing of Health Care Services and provides the steps and history of marketing in health care and the effects of marketing on the health care delivery system from 1950 to 1990. It introduces the health care consumers and their role in the marketing process as well as the factors that influence consumer behavior. These factors influence the success of marketing in health care. It also provides the requirements for successful marketing and current techniques and strategies used by health care organizations.

Advertising is “false or misleading” under Cal. Bus. & Prof. Code § 17500 if it contains “untrue or misleading” claims without adequate qualifying statements. Freeman v. Time, Inc., 68 F.3d 285, 289 (9th Cir. 1995).

The Federal Trade Commission(FTC) was created in 1914. It was created to ensure that there were no businesses that were anticompetitive; meaning that there wasn’t one company or business that was creating a monopoly. The FTC has three main goals; they are to protect consumers, maintain competition, and advance performance. They protect the consumers by preventing fraud and making sure businesses are fair in the marketplace. They maintain competition by preventing companies from merging together and creating a monopoly. Finally, they advance performance by advancing the FTC’s performance through organizational, personal, and management excellence. The FTC is very beneficial, and although not everybody knows about it, as a consumer it helps with the economy of every American. Throughout the years since it was created, there has been more laws added that help keep businesses

The paper will serve as a historical background overview of how the Federal Trade Commission Act (FTC) came into existence. The paper will also break down the key components for which the FTC covers, such as deceptive advertising, baiting and switching and consumer fraud. There will be examples

The Federal Trade Commission enforces a variety of federal antitrust and consumer protection laws. The Commission seeks to

Bill Maher once mocked the aggressive nature of the drug advertisements that direct you to tell your doctor that their drug is right for you. “Tell your doctor? Shouldn’t your doctor tell you what drugs you need. When you tell your doctor isn’t he just a dealer at that point,” said Bill Maher. The American public generally trusts their government to protect them from the hidden dangers prescription and over-the-counter drugs. However, that trust isn’t fully warranted as the FDA has been featured in the GAO report of “high risk” agencies which need drastic reforms. After all, the FDA is in charge of regulating the shameless drug advertisements that inundate the airwaves.

What is the FTC? The FTC stands for Federal Trade Commission. The Federal Trade Commission is an independent federal agency created by Congress in 1914 to help prevent unfair business practices, deception, fair trade practices, and unfair competition. The FTC’s mission is to protect the consumers by enacting laws to ensure that businesses cannot cheat people out of money and keep businesses from being unethical and immoral. The FTC takes complaints about businesses and investigates them for fraud or unfair labor practices every year (Silbersack, 2013).

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) was created in 1914 primarily as a way for the government to “trust bust” or apply regulations ensuring a free marketplace for U.S. consumers and business enterprises. In this regard, the FTC enforces antitrust viola- tions that could hamper consumer interests, as well as federal consumer protection laws against fraud, deception, and unfair business practices. The commission’s primary enforcement mechanism is the Bureau of Consumer Protection, which is divided into seven divisions: (1) enforcement, (2) advertising practices, (3) financial practices, (4) marketing practices, (5) planning and information, (6) consumer and business educa- tion programs, and (7) privacy and identity protection.21 As the federal

Managed Care is a system of health care in which patients agree to visit only certain doctor and hospitals, and in which the cost of treatment is monitored by a managing company. David, a clinical supervisor of one pad was responsible for the clinical supervision of eight clinical case managers. On typically day, he receives around 40 phone messages about clients that are in need of his services. His job is to field calls from mental health providers seeking authorization to provide treatment for clients. There are those who believe that managed care is simply another example of corporate America discovering a means to increase profits for shareholders of insurance companies, at the expense of individuals seeking mental health treatment. (pg.

Kotler, P., Shalowitz, J., & Stevens, R. J. (2008). Strategic marketing for health care organizations: Building a customer-driven health system. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Everyone knows that direct- to consumer-marketing is focused on the patients. There are a lot of ways to get the attention of these patients. Advertising can be done through social media, print, radio, television, and word of mouth. “Prescription direct-to-consumer advertising has become a highly scrutinized and researched topic in healthcare marketing,” (Rollins, B.L., King, K. Zinkhan G., & Perri, M., 2011.).

Televised drug ads have helped to update patients on the positives of pharmaceuticals. The Direct-to-Consumer (DTC) drug ads inform people about medical conditions and the treatments that come with those conditions. As stated by this article, “44% of patients…said that DTC prescription drug ads helped educate them about drugs, medical conditions, and treatments” (“Should Prescription Drugs” 2). For most patients, they are unaware of what is inside of their medications and what the risks are. With prescription drug ads, they allow the uninformed patients to become informed by

Nurses are constantly challenged by changes which occur in their practice environment and are under the influence of internal or external factors. Due to the increased complexity of the health system, nowadays nurses are faced with ethical and legal decisions and often come across dilemmas regarding patient care. From this perspective a good question to be raised would be whether or not nurses have the necessary background, knowledge and skills to make appropriate legal and ethical decisions. Even though most nursing programs cover the ethical and moral issues in health care, it is questionable if new nurses have the depth of knowledge and understanding of these issues and apply them in their practice

Marketing has become so prominent in health care today because the health care system is more and more resembling a business. There are many functions to be performed and many complex and sophisticated skills involved. There has been so much growth and competition that health care is advertised and marketed like any other product.

The concept of health services marketing is centered on “the analysis, planning, implementation, and control of carefully formulated programs designed to promote voluntary exchanges of values with target markets with the purpose of achieving organizational objectives (Longest et al. 2000, p 358). The marketing department of any health care organization requires knowledge of the current and future needs and desires of the target market, which will allow strategic planners to determine services and products that can be offered. An assessment of the target markets