What trends will drive Healthcare Marketing this year?
The medical industry sees healthcare marketing as opportunity for progress and innovation.
Processing 30 billion healthcare transactions costs almost $250 billion a year. Healthcare spending in the United States will amount to $5.4 trillion by 2024, which corresponds to an annual average of 19.6% of GDP. It is expected that by 2024, the health information technology market will reach $390.7 billion and will grow faster than the GDP of most countries.
Health care is a complex system that is resilient to major changes but vulnerable to butterflies, where even a small amount of input has dramatic consequences. While future health trends are being discussed in the industry, some are most useful. As more and more healthcare providers outsource various administrative functions, these three trends will benefit medical companies as part of their marketing strategy for 2020.
1. Internet of Things (IoT)
In 2017, the number of devices connected to the Internet, according to Statista, exceeded 20 billion units. By 2020, there were about 50 billion of them, according to Cisco. The Internet of Things is not only an executive fridge that orders its owner’s favorite food itself or a service kettle that boils water on demand from a smartphone. These are smart bracelets, and sensors, which you can remotely monitor your health. In other words, in a few years, the world around us will become the Internet of Things.
IoT has advantages that make healthcare marketing more reliable, efficient, and faster. IoT-enabled devices enable remote monitoring, unleashing the potential for superior care. The global market for IoT medical services is projected to reach $534.3 billion by 2025, increasing 19.9% year-on-year.
The following examples show how healthcare marketing can use the IoT.
- Real-time location – medical devices such as wheelchairs, scales, sprayers, defibrillators, monitoring equipment, or pumps are detected by sensors and easily detected by IoT. Other IoT devices help monitor the environment.
- Wearable accessories are often used to monitor the user’s health for medical reasons, such as heart rate, blood pressure, calories burned, etc.
- Improved patient data and real-time tracking. The future for effective care is higher than ever before. It is now up to healthcare providers to make the best use of this technology.
“Technology has helped improve healthcare over the years. From connected devices to implantable solutions, innovation in the technology industry saves lives and helps physicians with data, analytics, and improved decision-making. I look forward to technologies such as 5G, sensors, and devices that will help implement new programs and services that meet community needs. “ – Coolin Tantod, Director of Medical Informatics.
2. Automated Medical Billing
They eat your wallet space, get easily lost, and when you try to find them, you realize you’ve already thrown them away. With medical bills, you always want to be very careful not to lose such important receipts.
Incoming invoices are too often processed manually and require a lot of effort, both for your employees and suppliers. One of the most time-consuming steps in manual processing is to enter data from paper invoices or scanned copies received by e-mail into ERP. Other manual steps include long searching for historical information, communicating with the supplier, requesting additional information, manual routing, monitoring, and reporting on the status of unpaid invoices. How a company processes supplier invoices directly affects the purchase and receipt of goods and services.
Let’s be honest. No one else wants to deal with paper receipts—introducing an automated billing system for medical services. Fortunately, medical bills are currently processed online or in the cloud. This new software allows your healthcare providers to monitor and optimize their medical bills and payments effectively. They will be able to review their insurance at any time without the risk of insurance errors, as the software will already report possible errors in advance. This increases the security of their records, so third-party billing services are top-rated. This is something that medical companies should consider for the coming year.
3. Patient Experience
The medical business is no exception. If you work with a professional and experienced medical invoicing outsourcing company, this will provide you with the best way to lead the way in identifying future trends and strategies related to the success of your RCM. A business that is constantly evolving is equated with clients that are also constantly evolving. However, be careful with the use of personalized experience. Sometimes users may have too complex instructions and directions. Improving patient experience begins with clear messaging and information, especially on practice-specific topics.
In addition to making a profit, companies and businesses should ask themselves how they can attract their clients, not attract them. Patients expect a personalized approach that meets their needs. More and more B2B customers are moving to companies that provide more customer-like services. This applies to all businesses, but especially to healthcare. Therefore, to link this to virtual health billing services, try to involve the individual from mass mailing/maintenance to the development of personalized messages/answers for your patients who either tell a story or answer their problems and questions in a fun way.
Developing personas beyond the corporate hierarchy is an excellent way to drive engagement. As data grows, it’s more feasible to use micro-targeting to hone in on particular target markets. Having a specific audience means that content can be created with more specificity, timing, and relevance. The more the content can speak to the audience, the more likely they are to engage in the content and company.
As technology grows, innovation will become an important marketing trend in healthcare in 2019. It is expected that the search for clients will continue to develop and further influence the structure of all marketing strategies in the healthcare sector to remain competitive. Healthcare analysts predict that by 2020 more than 50% of all online searches will be carried out using voice search capabilities. Given the high demand for voice products such as Alexa, finding the means to stay at the top of the trend is a great way to create a strong competitive advantage.