Marketing Health Care Into the Twenty-First Century

Book excerpt: Marketing Health Care Into the Twenty-First Century explores recent and anticipated changes and trends--legislative, economic, organizational, clinical, and operational--from a strategic marketing perspective. Author Alan K. Vitberg, a respected consultant in health care marketing, takes an unabashedly strong, direct, and aggressive perspective on these trends, maintaining that a state of war exists in the health care industry--a war that will only increase in fervor and intensity as organizations fight for survival and their share of hundreds of billions of dollars spent in America on health care. According to Marketing Health Care Into the Twenty-First Century, those payers and providers who understand that they’re fighting a war and act accordingly stand the best chance of short term survival and long term prosperity. Those who bury their heads in the sand, awaiting the storm of war to blow over, will find themselves prisoners of their inactivity. Marketing Health Care Into the Twenty-First Century succinctly captures and explores issues and trends affecting participants in the battle for consumers’health care dollars, including: the growth of managed care; emerging health care systems; formation of provider networks and other organizational structures; the relationship between risk and product, target market, and organizational options; the emerging clout of primary care; mergers and acquisitions; and shifts in health care dollar flow. Marketing Health Care Into the Twenty-First Century is also one of the first books in the market examining changes being made to Medicare and Medicaid programs and their strategic and tactical implications for health care industry participants. In order to take advantage of these changes and trends, Vitberg moves from the conceptual to the practical by defining and delivering insights into the concept of competitive innovation and its relationship to competitive advantage--hearing, listening, and responding to the voice of the market through meaning brand identification, product differentiation, and intrusive marketing communications that motivate customers to a preferential purchase decision. Anyone in the health care industry--marketing, planning, and development professionals with hospitals, HMOs, PPOs, networks/alliances, insurance companies, and medical groups--is among those who will find Marketing Health Care Into the Twenty-First Century a valuable resource for embracing strategic marketing now and in the near future. The book also serves as informative, stimulating reading for professors and students in graduate level health care administration courses.