Health care industry spends $30 billion a year on marketing

Spending on health care marketing nearly doubled from 1997 to 2016, soaring to at least $30 billion a year, according to a study published Tuesday in JAMA. “Marketing drives more testing. It drives more treatments," said Steven Woloshin, the study co-author and co-director of the Center for Medicine and Media at the Dartmouth Institute for Health Policy and Clinical Practice.