Synthesizing Research on Healthcare advertising

Source: https://www.adsoftheworld.com

 At what length should health care companies compete with other companies and advertise to consumers.

 The economic principle I researched was people generally respond to incentives in predictable ways.

Researching advertising in healthcare shows that negative effects of advertising for hospitals cause consumers to make uninformed decisions due to lack of information and for drugs are not educational, but rather use consumer’s emotions to persuade them to buy their product. However, there are some benefits like patients are talking more to their physicians about their health condition and informs consumers about new healthcare trends.

 For this passion project, I specifically researched about pharmaceutical and hospital advertising and how physicians and consumers respond negatively to these ads. I found that in my blog post #2 article titled Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania titled “Hospital Advertising: Good Business or Time to Pull the plug? stated that hospital advertising is unprofessional and doesn’t ensure the health of the community, but are more concerned about making a profit. Hospitals ads have shown the positive side to a procedure but left out the side effects and failures of those procedures. These billboard and 30-second tv-ads lack quality information for consumers to make informed choices. This causes consumers to respond to these ads in a negative way. Then in my blog post #3, an article published by the Prescription Drug Abuse titled “Prescription Drugs Should be Better Regulated” dove into how direct-to-consumer advertising affects consumers actions and physicians actions. Pharmaceutical advertising has caused physicians to convince patients why the advertised drug is not better than the prescription that the physicians can prescribe. In a survey portrayed in the article about 70% physicians have complied with patient’s request. This article also states that drug advertising actually manipulates consumers because during the ad they hear words such as reduces heart risk and treats high cholesterol. They hear 45 seconds of the benefits of the drug and the last 15 second about the potential risks. When consumers view this ad they think that the FDA approved it, therefore, it is trustworthy. Unlike car ads where there isn’t an association approving those ads.

 Then I looked into how drug advertising is a good thing for consumers and physicians. In blog post #4 an article titled “Sick of Drug Ads Here’s why they might be good for you” conducted a survey to see how effective drug advertising is to consumers. Wharton Michael Sinkinson, a business professor in economics and Amanda Starc, a professor of health care management to really determine whether drug advertising are informational to consumers or harmful. They concluded that drug advertising is a good thing for consumers because patients are talking more to their physicians about advertised drugs. If these drug ads were to stop then fewer consumers would talk to their doctors about their health such as cholesterol. An example would be statin if that drug goes off-patented then there would be no more statin ads on tv and fewer people would be talking to their doctors about their cholesterol. Overall, I believe that drug advertising should be stopped because pharmaceutical companies are not looking out for consumer’s self-interest, but rather their own. On the other hand, physicians job is to look out for their patients. They know what drug is good or bad for their patients. However, I do believe that hospital advertising is beneficial because there are so many hospitals open it could help consumers know what hospital is more suitable for them.