Health marketing

Health Marketing is a discipline that employs traditional marketing techniques and research-driven strategies to protect and promote the health of diverse communities. This multidisciplinary field blends elements from public health promotion, marketing, and communications to deliver vital health information to the public. When employed by the public sector, it promotes public awareness of preventive measures, health promotion initiatives, and health protection services. When used by the private sector, health marketing can increase market awareness of a new treatment or therapy, both at the provider and consumer levels.

Health marketing helps health-focused organizations and services gain visibility and reach for their initiatives, such as new medical advancements, health insurance plans, or community health programs. It uses the classic marketing mix's "4Ps"—product, place, promotion, and price—in a health context. In the context of health marketing the 4P's would correspond to:
 * "Product" could be a specific health service, procedure, or program.
 * "Place" implies how and where these services or programs can be accessed.
 * "Promotion" involves strategies to raise awareness and demand for these services.
 * "Price" includes monetary cost and non-monetary factors, either charged directly to the consumer or to a government or NGO program.

Despite its critical role, the term "Health Marketing" is less commonly used within the field of public health. Alternatives like "Social Marketing" or "Integrated Marketing Communication" are more prevalent, referring to the use of marketing principles to craft effective health communication strategies.

Medical marketing in the private sector
Health Marketing or Medical Marketing is a specialized branch of marketing. Marketing consists of many broad categories of services and target demographics. Health Marketing may more frequently be a B2C (Business-to-Consumer) form of marketing, as it encompasses wellness, general health strategies and supporting therapies. Medical Marketing may more frequently refer to B2B (Business-to-Business) or B2G (Business-to-Government) targeted platforms, such as the sale of diagnostic imagery devices to hospitals.

Medical marketing is typically used to market to consumers however, is increasingly being used to communicate important message to healthcare professionals (HCPs).

Generation Z represents an emerging major target-demographic for supplementary private health services. According to a Forbes survey, 85% of Generation Z individuals said they are open to alternative healthcare options that combine offline and online experiences like telemedicine, dispatch services and membership-based services.

Regulations
Advertising of medical procedures is regulated in many countries, especially in aesthetics and plastic surgery. For instance, showing before and after pictures or referring to someone's body type can be considered harmful.

In Singapore, the Ministry of Health provides detailed regulations for the advertising of private hospitals and medical clinics. These regulations provide guidance on what can and cannot be included in such advertisements.

In the United States, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) requires companies to support their advertising claims with solid proof, especially for businesses that market food, over-the-counter drugs, dietary supplements, contact lenses, and other health-related products. Companies must have appropriate substantiation to back up claims for health-related products. This requirement ensures that marketing claims are not misleading and that they are based on scientific evidence.

Also within the United States, the "Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act" (HIPAA) establishes the "HIPAA Privacy Rule", which provides important controls over whether and how protected health information is used and disclosed for marketing purposes. The Privacy Rule requires written authorization from individuals before their protected health information can be used or disclosed for marketing, with limited exceptions. The Rule also distinguishes marketing communications from those communications about goods and services that are essential for quality health care.

The Privacy Rule defines "marketing" as a communication about a product or service that encourages recipients to purchase or use the product or service, and it requires an individual's authorization for these communications to occur. This definition also includes an arrangement where a covered entity discloses protected health information to another entity in exchange for direct or indirect remuneration for the other entity to make a communication about its own product or service.

However, the Privacy Rule also establishes exceptions to the definition of marketing, which include communications about a health-related product or service provided by the covered entity making the communication, communications for the treatment of the individual, and communications for case management or care coordination for the individual. These exceptions allow for necessary communications essential for healthcare delivery and operations, while still protecting the individual's privacy rights.

"Ad Standards" - a Canadian NGO, has published a set of guidelines clarifying the Canadian regulatory landscape regarding consumer-directed medical advertising, with a specific focus on "reasonable claims" and how medical information should be presented to laypeople.

Medical marketing in the public sector
Public sector medical marketing encompasses efforts by healthcare providers, research institutions, nonprofits, and patient advocacy groups to influence public health policy and resource allocation. These entities use healthcare marketing to shape public opinion, inform policy, and influence decision-making among governmental bodies. The strategies used often hinge on providing compelling, evidence-based arguments about the benefits of certain health policies or services. For instance, a nonprofit organization might use data to illustrate the impact of a particular disease and the effectiveness of their programs in combating it. They would then communicate this information to the public and policymakers, with the aim of securing more funding or legislative support.

The specific strategies used in public sector medical marketing can be multifaceted and varied. They often include traditional lobbying efforts, such as direct communication with lawmakers, as well as more broad-based public relations campaigns. Public health campaigns, op-eds, white papers, and funding patient advocacy groups are all common tools. The shared goal across these strategies is to make a compelling case for the importance of particular health policies or resources and to rally support for them among both the general public and policymakers.

Risks and Concerns
While medical marketing can play a beneficial role in raising awareness about health conditions and treatments, there are significant risks and concerns when it comes to its potential misuse. An example of this is the opioid crisis, which vividly demonstrates the harmful consequences when marketing strategies are used irresponsibly, or when profit motives supersede patient outcomes.

Aggressive marketing by pharmaceutical companies has been widely implicated in the rise of opioid addiction. Companies used strategies that downplayed the risk of addiction and exaggerated the benefits of their drugs, leading to over-prescription and misuse.

As a result, there have been calls for increased regulation of healthcare marketing, principally in restricting and codifying interactions between sales representatives and medical providers, greater oversight of marketing materials, and more liability exposure to entities found negligent in their marketing methodologies harm-reduction design.