Healthcare spending likely to be constrained

Observation:   A story in today’s Wall Street Journal suggests conservative spending on health care in the near term; a hangover behavior from the effects of the recession.  Click here to see the story. 

Implications:  To the extent that health care “purchases” are elective or where the insurance deductible is too high, people continue to defer spending just like any other discretionary category.  (Even things like laser vision correction and dental.)

If you work in health care, specifically, have you returned to explaining the value and quality-of-life issues associated with the care you provide?  Do you realize that you must compete with, say, the purchase of new home furnishings, a boat, or other discretionary purchases? 

Do you offer a form of financing, beyond the patients’ own insurance?

Health care is complicated.  Convincing people to buy it is getting more complicated, too.  Like any other purchase, it is important to explain your value proposition:  How your treatment adds value to the consumers’ (patients’) life. 

Mike Anderson, for the Elm Street Economics consumer trends blog. A service of The Center for Sales Strategy, Inc.