The Role of Social Media in the Healthcare Industry

We can all agree that social media has become a part of everyday, mainstream life. As with many new technologies, some industries are slower to adapt than others. In this case, the healthcare industry has been a little on the slow side of social media adaptation.

However, a recent report found that,

"In a survey of more than a thousand consumers, more than two-fifths of individuals said social media did affect their choice of a provider or organization. Forty-five percent said it would affect their decision to get a second opinion; 34 percent said it would influence their decision about taking a certain medication and 32 percent said it would affect their choice of a health insurance plan."

These findings are not implying that social media is the deciding factor for choosing a healthcare providor, but they do provide very valuable information. 

The most important of this information can be summed up in a quote from Farris Timimi, medical director for the Mayo Clinic Center for Social Media:

"Our patients are there. Our moral obligation is to meet them where they're at and give them the information they need so they can seek recovery," Timimi said. "This is not marketing; this is the right thing to do."

CMS's Recent Rulings

On June 4 of this year, the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) issued the third and final chapter of the Medicare Marketing Guidelines. Over the next couple weeks, we will be telling you more about these changes, who they affect and how those people are affected.

Some of the more interesting and notable changes include requirements for plan sponsors with non-English speaking populations and populations with special needs. For example, a new ruling states that ID cards for Medicare Beneficiaries are excluded from translation requirements and only need to be produced in English. Additionally, the new guidelines state:

“Plan sponsors must make their marketing materials available in any language that is the primary language of more than ten percent of a plan sponsor’s service area. Additionally, plan sponsors must place translated versions of these materials on the plan’s website. Also, all plan sponsors’ call centers must be able to accommodate non-English speaking/reading beneficiaries. Plan sponsors must have appropriate interpreter services available to call center personnel to answer questions from non-English speaking beneficiaries.”

The role of social networking has been in constant debate regarding healthcare and pharma companies recently with regards to how companies can use sites like Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter to market their products. Now, CMS will allow plan sponsors to market their products via social networking websites, but CMS will carefully monitor use of social networking sites to inform potential future revisions to this policy.