The Continuing Care Retirement Community healthcare system is a community-based outpatient clinic that offers basic but high standards of healthcare services to the retired members of the community particularly the veterans. The healthcare system provides healthcare services to the veterans with stable chronic health problems or minor acute diseases. The services offered by the Continuing Care Retirement Community include personal care services, laboratory services, prescription services, emergency services and pharmacy services.
How the Continuing Care Retirement Community Legally Market its Services
Every organization has to carry out its marketing activities according to the legal requirements of the country where it operates. The Continuing Care Retirement Community healthcare system is not an exception and thus, will have to market its services according to the legal requirements of the United States concerning healthcare systems. In the United States, healthcare services, and products marketing fall under many laws, enforcement agencies and regulations, depending on the service or product being marketed. Healthcare organizations have specific rules to follow as they market their products or services. They also have to comply with the laws that govern how they get patients referrals that can apply to marketing, and carefully protect every patient’s data (Beese, 2015). Therefore, the Continuing Care Retirement Community Healthcare System will legally market its services by observing the following guidelines.
• Healthcare Regulations
There are different rules, laws and government agencies that regulate healthcare marketing in the United States. For instance, the Accountability Act and the Health Insurance Portability regulate how healthcare organizations can carry out promotion and also use their customer information for marketing objectives (Beese, 2015). The Continuing Care Retirement Community healthcare system will thus follow these regulations to ensure that it observes all these rules and laws regulating marketing activities by healthcare organizations in order to market its services legally and also avoid the liabilities that may result from not observing them.
• Fair Advertisement
Like any advertising of a service or product, healthcare marketing in the United States must meet all the truth in advertising laws, including even those local offenses that are generally enforced by the attorney general at the state level. The laws require advertisers to be prepared to provide evidence that backs the claims. Additionally, the laws require advertisements to be cautious about promising outcomes (Beese, 2015). Therefore, the Continuing Care Retirement Community healthcare system will ensure that its advertisement is not only truthful but also fair. It implies that the advertisement will include a fair representation of the competitors’ products and not mislead the consumers by leaving out important information.
• Organization Marketing and Social Media
Advertising for healthcare organizations can fall under the Stark Law Rules that control how healthcare facilities can obtain referrals. Additionally, these rules control how healthcare organizations can feature doctors in their advertising. The marketing campaigns such as those that apply social media channels also need to abide by the HIPAA privacy regulations, which protect patient data (Beese, 2015). The Continuing Care Retirement Community healthcare system will thus ensure that it observes the Stark Law Rules that will control how it gets referrals. Also, it will abide by the requirements of HIPPA privacy regulations ii order to ensure that it protects the patient data.
Marketing Principles that are most promising for the Continuing Care Retirement Community
Marketing principles are important to any business since they dictate the success or failure of the business. One of the most promising principles of the Continuing Care Retirement Healthcare system is the product (service). According to Kotler & Armstrong (2012), the product is most important principles among the basic principles of marketing. If the product is effective, then the business is likely to be successful. Most of the healthcare systems in the United States have not managed to offer quality services to the community members especially the veterans. Therefore, apart from providing high quality services, the Continuing Care Retirement Community healthcare system will offer unique healthcare services to its customers. Also, the healthcare system will provide customers’ support services in order to enhance the quality of services being offered.
The other marketing principle that is also most promising to the Continuing Care Community healthcare system is the price. The price is also an important principle among the marketing principles since it dictates whether a consumer will be able to buy your product or not (Kotler & Armstrong, 2012). Many healthcare facilities in the United States charge very high prices for veterans seeking medical services. Also, most of these veterans do not have medical covers since they cannot afford the high insurance premiums charged by the private insurance companies. The high prices charged by both the healthcare facilities and the insurance firms have left many veterans not able to access it even though they are the group who needs healthcare services most due to their age. Therefore, the Continuing Care Community healthcare system will aim to provide high standards of medical services at a relatively lower price.
The third principle that is also promising to the Continuing Care Community healthcare system is the place. The place is also an important principle of marketing as it determines how the product is going to reach the target market (Uncles, 2011). Not many healthcare facilities are located in the communities where the veterans are living. They have to travel some distances before they can access the healthcare services. Most of these healthcare centers are located in the cities whereas many of the veterans live outside the cities. As a result, the Continuing Care Community healthcare system will ensure that its healthcare centers are situated close to the community members so that they can access the healthcare services easily.
A Real-life Healthcare System that Matches the Continuing Care Retirement Community
An example of a real-life healthcare system that matches the continuing retirement community healthcare system is the VA Community Based Outpatient Clinic. Just like the continuing retirement community healthcare system, the VA Community Based Outpatient Clinic also offers the basic healthcare services to the veterans. The healthcare facility provides outpatient healthcare services such as personal care services, laboratory services, prescription services and pharmacy services (Legion.org, 2016).
VA Community Based Outpatient Clinic has been successful to some extent in the provision of healthcare services to the veterans. Although the healthcare system targets the right market segment, it has not able to carry out some of its marketing activities effectively. For instance, it does lack some basic services such as the emergency services. Therefore, the veterans cannot access the emergency services and thus have to be rushed to the nearest healthcare facility where they can get the service. Also, they are not fairly distributed in the community and thus some veterans are not able to access them easily as expected.
References
Beese, J. (2015). Social Media & Healthcare Marketing Guidelines | Sprout Social. Sprout Social. Retrieved 14 February 2016, from http://sproutsocial.com/insights/social-media-and-healthcare-marketing/
Legion.org,. (2016). Community-Based Outpatient Clinics (CBOCs) | The American Legion. Retrieved 13 February 2016, from http://www.legion.org/veteranshealthcare/outpatient
Kotler, P., & Armstrong, G. (2012). Principles of marketing. Boston: Pearson Prentice Hall.
Uncles, M. (2011). From Marketing Knowledge To marketing Principles. Marketing Theory, 2(4), 345-348.
