Why develop an effective pain management advertising program? Business development is a crucial aspect of any pain management practice. Still, many physicians are reluctant creating their own practice. It certainly doesn’t help that advertising pain management clinics is often viewed in an unfavorable light. Advertisements are often negative portrayals of the medical industry and the benefits they offer patients.
Some physicians feel a pain management practice is a sideshow to what they do best: practice medicine. Physician groups such as ABA Therapy, however, see it as a valuable tool for educating patients about their condition and their disease. For example, the American Pain Foundation notes that approximately 1.5 million patients seek treatment for pain each year at a clinic. It is through advertising that the public can gain access to these services and learn how to better deal with their illness.
Other physicians, however, are skeptical about providing “medicine” to patients. After all, one might argue that the primary purpose of a pain management clinic is simply to provide treatment for headache when working out. In this view, healthcare providers are simply the maintenance and monitoring wing of medical professionals who specialize in treating pain. The result is a general lack of respect for the role of the physician in the healthcare system.
Such a view is also prevalent among some practitioners who are skeptical about the value of advertising in the healthcare sector. Rather than promoting healthcare, they argue that such promotion serves only to increase paperwork and expense. By relying on standard marketing strategies, they argue, the pain management practice will miss an important part of the patient/patient relationship. Such marketing strategies, in other words, can limit the kind of things patients can do to improve their conditions. The result can be that patients who have seen such marketing strategies in action may become less likely to engage in future therapies in the same manner.
This problem is particularly pronounced in areas such as physical therapy, chiropractic, and rehabilitation. In these specialties, where most pain medication is prescribed by physicians, doctors do not have a stranglehold on how patients use their medications. While a patient may see their doctor for back pain and receive a prescription for two back medication packages, many times they will continue using these prescriptions. This is because most back pain management practice patients are not aware that multiple prescriptions are necessary. Further, many physicians and chiropractors do not provide these services. This means that patients are left to their own devices when it comes to their medication.