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Revolution is changing the American health care system. The changes taking place are unquestionably some of the most dramatic in the history of American health care. The impact of the trends now affecting our current health care system undoubtedly will influence the structure and functioning of the system that will accompany us into the 21st century.
The decade of the 1980s witnessed the procompetition environment advocated by the Reagan administration, which supported deregulation and encouraged intensive competition.1 With the shifts in federal policies came pressure from many quarters for cost containment. Disgusted with years of accelerating costs, big purchasers of health care services, such as governments, corporations, and unions, began forcing changes in the ways physicians, hospitals, and other providers are used and paid.2
Few areas within health care can match the dramatic evolution faced by mental health care providers today. A growing concern is how to maintain or improve current service levels in the face of decreased government support3 and at the same time, effectively deal with the new wave of competition from both profit and nonprofit organizations. The changes in federal policies, reductions in funding, pressures for cost containment, and dramatic increases in competition are some of the factors that contributed to a number of mental health care organizations becoming more active in marketing.
During the last 10 years, health care services marketing has emerged as an area of paramount importance to mental health organizations. Descriptions of the appropriate use of marketing techniques frequently appear in forums, workshops, professional journals (such as the Journal of Marketing for Mental Health), and a few specialized books.4 As a result, there appears to be a lot of marketing activity, but much of it is not very good.5 For some health professionals, marketing represents a new set of buzz words with little or no understanding of the concepts. For example, one study reported that 66% of the physicians surveyed believe that marketing is merely a synonym for advertising.6 In short, there appears to be a considerable gap between what many health professionals understand about marketing and what they do and say. In light of this confusion regarding some of the fundamentals of marketing, this article focuses on marketing basics.
WHAT IS MARKETING?
Marketing offers a variety of...