Since healthcare advertising was first prohibited, public and professional opinion on advertising has shifted 180 degrees. Advertising is regarded as a vital type of information for medical service competitiveness due to the competitive nature of medicine and the firm establishment of practically all business sectors in the United States, presently deemed a free market. This is a complete reversal of opinion from when advertising was initially banned.
Previously, individuals were often uninformed of the different sources of affordable, high-quality health care. Comparing the finest healthcare options has never been easier, thanks to public information made available through advertisements, internet-based user evaluations, and the free circulation of information. Advertising promotes the flow of healthcare information, raises public awareness of health issues in general, and serves as a springboard for hospitals to initiate and innovate as they strive to differentiate themselves from their competitors (Schwartz et al., 2019). As stated in Smith’s research, removing marketing from hospitals increases patient readmission. According to the study cited in this article, prohibiting hospital advertising can hurt population health by increasing hospital readmissions within 30 days. For every 100 hospital discharges, a blanket ban on hospital advertising can result in an additional 1.2 readmissions. Due to the advertising, these hospitals can attract and treat more patients, resulting in improved overall population quality. A restriction on advertising would result in fewer patients visiting those institutions and, as a result, poorer population-level health results.
HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act) establishes certain regulatory requirements for the marketing process. HIPAA marketing policies should be the bedrock of healthcare advertising (Schwartz et al., 2019). The HIPAA Privacy Rule defines marketing as an agreement between covered entities and any other individual. The covered entity provides protected health information to the other entity in consideration of direct or indirect compensation. The other company will then communicate about its product or service to encourage recipients to buy or utilize it. Since protections must be put in place to keep protected health information (PHI) of patients private and secure, HIPAA marketing rules are extremely sensitive (Schwartz et al., 2019). As a result, patient information must be protected in advertising. The information used for advertising does not compromise the integrity of the people whose information is being used.
The HIPAA Act was signed into law by President Clinton precisely 25 years ago today. Few individuals could have predicted how HIPAA would expand and mature into the complete national health privacy law today, on August 21, 1996, when President Clinton signed the bill (Moore et al., 2019). Although it is difficult to say that HIPAA has been a complete failure, the legislation has received substantial criticism over the years, particularly because of the significant administrative burden it imposed on healthcare companies at the outset. The most significant achievements are improvements to patient privacy and data security, patient rights to their healthcare data, increased healthcare system efficiency, and measures that have helped to minimize waste and healthcare fraud (Moore et al., 2019). The enhancements have been implemented at a low cost in most cases (Moore et al., 2019). HIPAA has many advantages, but it also has several drawbacks that have grown more obvious in recent years. Even now, 25 years after it was first enacted, there is still some misunderstanding about HIPAA, whom it relates to, and what HIPAA compliance requires.
Isaiah 29:15 states, “Ah, you who hide deep from the Lord your counsel, whose deeds are in the dark, and who say, Who sees us? Who knows us?” This biblical precept, in my opinion, emphasizes the significance of respecting patient confidentiality. Their information should not be used for personal advantage, and obtaining their consent before using their data is the right thing to do.
References
Schwartz, L. M., & Woloshin, S. (2019). Medical marketing in the United States, 1997-2016. Jama, 321(1), 80-96.
Moore, W., & Frye, S. (2019). Review of HIPAA, part 1: History, protected health information, and privacy and security rules. Journal of nuclear medicine technology, 47(4), 269-272.