Sex, lies and healthcare marketing go together all too often, but the good news is that few of the drug advertising claims on TV are actually false, according to a study published in the September 2013 issue of Journal of General Internal Medicine. Yet, as other studies suggest, drug ads may be encouraging gender bias as in the case of psychoactive drug advertising (see discussion below).

Thanks to Gary Schwitzer in HealthNewsReview.org, for writing about “Content Analysis of False and Misleading Claims in Television Advertising for Prescription and Nonprescription Drugs,” by authors Adrienne E. Faerber PhD and David Kreling PhD.

Journal article questions credibility of TV drug ads

In the study, the authors analyzed TV drug ads over a two-year period and found that over half of drug claims were potentially misleading. False claims accounted for only two percent of the prescription drug ads and seven percent of the nonprescription ads.

As Gary points out from the study’s findings, the average consumer may see up to 30 hours of drug advertising while spending 15-20 minutes per visit with their caregiver.

Adding to the potential problem is the gender bias reflected in some drug advertising. For example, psychoactive drug advertising portrayed women 62 percent of the time, according to a study published in a Brazilian journal. Judy Stone writes on the issue of women and drug advertising in the Scientific American blog.

As a Minneapolis healthcare content marketing firm, we care deeply about helping our clients engage their customers in credible, sustainable ways. Sex, lies and healthcare marketing may go together sometimes, but we’re also encouraged that most healthcare marketing avoids false claims. The misleading claims issue is something for the industry to work on.

Healthcare transformation refers to the fundamental change going on in the healthcare industry, especially the ongoing transformation from a fee-for-services to an outcomes-based model. Transformation is being driven by meaningful use, value-based purchasing, accountable care organizations (ACO’s), the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare), and advanced clinical decision support. Summed up, these changes are about aligning incentives and using advanced technology to improve outcomes. For a Minneapolis healthcare content marketing firm, there is much to communicate about, and we’re excited to be part of this transformation.

The first step is to understand the bigger issues. As a Minneapolis industry analyst relations firm, we work closely with a number of the top research firms, including Gartner, IDC and The Advisory Board. Each of these organizations has written extensively about healthcare transformation. In addition, some of the better sources of information about healthcare transformation are The Center for Healthcare Research and Transformation, The Joint Commission Center for Transforming Healthcare, and The Institute for Health Technology Transformation.

It’s important to follow the law-making and rule-making processes in government. As a Minneapolis government relations firm, we develop and implement effective government relations strategies. We keep clients up to speed on legislative and regulatory trends and developments, and represent our clients before Congress and Federal agencies. Snow has worked with the FDA, HHS, OMB and other agencies. Snow prepares comment letters to Federal and state agencies, meets with Congressional staff to share perspective and seek assistance, sets up meetings with policy makers, produces testimony and whitepapers, and arranges for legislation to be introduced.

Based on well grounded, current knowledge, we provide strategy development and implementation. Suppliers to the healthcare market must communicate how their products and services will help providers meet the new challenges and opportunities in healthcare. Providers must reach out to patients in new ways, emphasizing better outcomes and patient engagement.

For a Minneapolis healthcare PR firm like ourselves, we understand the need to help clients create strategies for thought leadership through content marketing, PR, SEO and SEM and other, integrated approaches. Working with our clients, we help them create original content to drive aggressive content marketing that builds recognition for our client’s solutions, products, people and perspective, while also driving improved SEO and social media.

What can healthcare PR and marketing professionals learn from the controversy regarding Penn State’s $1,200 surcharge on employees who do not meet a new requirement of the school’s wellness program to provide certain personal information and undergo a free biometric exam?

Penn State made an official announcement of the changes in early July, after consultations with faculty and other stakeholders. The Chronicle of Higher Education reported on the story in mid- and late July, “Weigh in or Pay,” followed by NPR on August 2^nd. By mid-August the story had made The Wall Street Journal.

Opponents challenged the new policy, beginning with a post by a Penn State professor on the blog maintained by the Pennsylvania division of the American Association of University Professors, followed by coverage on the faculty senate blog and a drive on petition site Change.org, where opponents of the new requirements have gathered more than 2,000 signatures to date. Analysis has occurred on independent blogs, including the Harvard Business Review blog – see “The Dangers of Wellness Programs: Don’t Be the Next Penn State.”

A few observations:

I don’t claim to be an expert on wellness plans, which are encouraged as part of the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare), but here are a few observations from a healthcare PR and marketing perspective:

1. Rewards are easier to market than penalties. If a plan reduces a member’s cost for taking a positive action, that’s likely to cause a lot less problem from a PR and marketing perspective than a penalty for not taking the same action.

2. Highlighting  plan member self-interest is generally superior to highlighting the needs of the employer. It’s possible that too much of the Penn State wellness program focus was on how much money it would save Penn State. Positively engaging plan members is probably easier when the health and lifestyle benefits of an action for them are the main thing emphasized. As we’ve stated elsewhere:

Suppliers to the healthcare market must communicate how their products and services will help…meet the new challenges and opportunities in healthcare. Providers must reach out to patients in new ways, emphasizing better outcomes and patient engagement.

3. Be prepared for controversy with vision, persistence…and evidence. Well-run wellness plans have demonstrated strong ROI, promoting healthier lifestyles and outcomes with genuine cost savings. Yet, critics of the Penn State plan, including the authors of the Harvard Business Review blog post (see above) attacked the merits and payoffs of the new requirements. Promoters of these plans must be ready to cite clear evidence that plan requirements result in better outcomes. And with social media, including petition sites, Facebook, blogs, etc., opponents have more tools at their disposal. It would be wise for plan promoters to have a comprehensive crisis management plan in place, including provisions for social media.

Physician diagnostic overconfidence may be harming patients, according to a new study published in JAMA. The study was actually about overconfidence regarding internists’ diagnoses. Even in difficult-to-diagnose cases, where the internists were correct in their diagnosis only 5.8 percent of the time, their confidence in their diagnosis was high. In easier cases, they were right only 55 percent of the time. For the study, that made the physician diagnoses wrong half the time.

As Cheryl Clark reports in a story for Health Leaders Media, one of the authors of the study makes the point that hospitals could do a better job of providing feedback to physicians whose initial diagnosis is wrong. Hardeep Singh, MD, principal author of the study, told Clark that the opportunity for learning is sometimes lost when feedback does not occur.

Singh suggests there is a serious problem regarding diagnostic accuracy:

The whole medical enterprise is based on the fact that one goes to a doctor in the belief that doctors usually know what they’re doing, otherwise you won’t go. If a doctor said, ‘you know, I’m kind of wrong half the time,’ no one is going to come to them.

Patient Engagement Needed

As we’ve previously written, patients and their families need to be engaged and consult reliable online resources and/or seek second opinions.

Since our post on 8/1/13, the Physician Payment Sunshine Act has received little attention, despite the recent start of record-keeping requirements for drug, medical device and certain other healthcare companies that make payments to physicians, and upcoming public reporting of such payments. However, The Wall Street Journal ran a story yesterday, “Doctors Face New Scrutiny Over Gifts.” The Journal reported that some physicians are already reconsidering what gifts, free dinners and other reportable compensation they receive from covered companies:

“John Mandrola, a cardiologist in Louisville, Ky., said he has been paid a total of $1,500 to $2,000 this year by medical-device makers for speaking engagements. Knowing that such transactions will become public has caused him to be more cautious about what fees to accept, he said. He avoids industry reps visiting his office, believing he can get information on new drugs elsewhere. I’ll continue to weigh the benefits and the negatives, and I think the Sunshine Act and the public reporting of all this stuff makes us think about that,” said Dr. Mandrola. “And I think that’s a good thing.”

CMS Advising Physicians to Keep Records

The story reported that the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Management are advising physicians to keep records of all payments and transfers of value from industry.

Reporting to the Public Begins in September, 2014

Healthcare PR professionals can expect to see increased media coverage of this issue, especially when the data begins to be available on a government website beginning in September 2014. That’s a year away, but the reporting has already begun.

If you’re a healthcare PR or marketing professional, please note: Over-diagnosis and overtreatment resulting from cancer screenings has led an expert panel to suggest that the word “cancer” should not be applied to conditions that are not lethal. The U.S. National Cancer Institute commissioned a panel to study the problem created by too many growths found through screening that are clinically insignificant and indolent in nature. Writing in The Journal of the American Medical Association, the panel reported:

“Screening always results in identifying more indolent disease. Although no physician has the intention to overtreat or overdiagnose cancer, screening and patient awareness have increased the chance of identifying a spectrum of cancers, some of which are not life threatening. Policies that prevent or reduce the chance of overdiagnosis and avoid overtreatment are needed, while maintaining those gains by which early detection is a major contributor to decreasing mortality and locally advanced disease.”

The authors note that while mortality from certain cancers – e.g., breast and prostate – declined between 1975 and 2010, the incidence has increased significantly because the screenings found large numbers of insignificant cancers. In contrast, they note, screening for colon and cervical cancer decreased incidence as well as late-stage disease through detection and removal of precursor lesions.

The panel’s advice? Reclassify  non-lethal lesions as “IDLE” – indolent lesions of epithelial origin. What’s the implication for healthcare PR and marketing professionals? Use caution when promoting screening programs or technologies. Be aware that overtreatment and over diagnosis is a significant problem, and communications about screening or screening technology should reflect this. For example, testing for PSA (prostate specific antigen) should include “informed consent” between patient and doctor, in which the pros and cons of PSA testing are discussed. Healthcare PR professionals should consider including some cautionary statement in their promotions for screening programs and screening technologies. Cancer screening has saved many lives, but patients should be aware of the risks.

With the rise of patient engagement, candor and full disclosure are the new standard.