Marketers should expect a long and difficult 2009. The pressure for proven returns on marketing expenditures will increase, and more agency consolidations and single client-single agency alignments are likely. Marketers should avoid long-term commitments on advertising time and space as spot market rates for media will become progressively more attractive. In this posting, John Quelch outlines eight factors companies should keep in mind when making their marketing plans for 2008 and 2009.
Massachusetts will be able to expand its first-in-the-nation healthcare law because of a federal promise of $10.6 billion over the next three years, Governor Deval Patrick has announced. The deal gives Massachusetts about $2.1 billion more than it received from the government in its last round of negotiations three years ago for its Medicaid waiver package. The waiver allows the state to provide subsidized health insurance to some residents with incomes higher than would typically be allowed under traditional Medicaid rules.
Beginning today, Medicare will stop paying hospitals for the added cost of treating patients who are injured in their care. Medicare has put 10 "reasonably preventable" conditions on its initial list, saying it will not pay when patients receive incompatible blood transfusions, develop infections after certain surgeries, or must undergo a second operation to retrieve a sponge left behind from the first. Serious bed sores, injuries from falls, and urinary tract infections caused by catheters are also on the list. Officials believe that the regulations could apply to several hundred thousand hospital stays of the 12.5 million Medicare covers annually. The policy will also prevent hospitals from billing patients directly for costs generated by medical errors.
San Francisco can continue to operate its healthcare program after an appeals court ruled that it does not violate federal law. The unanimous ruling overturned a lower court decision that the Healthy San Francisco program had placed an undue financial burden on struggling businesses. Healthy San Francisco is the first plan in the country to offer universal coverage, and requires companies with at least 20 workers to provide healthcare or give part of each employee's hourly salary to the city as a fee to help offset the program's estimated $200 million cost.
Hospitals and other health facilities will face harsh new penalties if their employees snoop in the medical records of patients, under legislation signed by California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. The governor approved two bills creating a state office to police patient privacy and to allow the state to issue fines as high as $250,000 for multiple violations. Schwarzenegger rejected most other major healthcare legislation aimed at protecting average Californians who face significant medical bills or inadequate insurance.
Medica Health Plans is launching an aggressive program to help people kick the bad habits that can make them sick. Medica has hired and trained 30 professionals to work the phones as full-time "health coaches" to coax, cajole and inspire others to live healthier lives. Medica's program uses a computer program to identify which members of the plan need help the most. They'll get invitations in the mail to take part, at no cost. But critics say the program is like healthcare Big Brother.
Medicare will withdraw its contract with Tampa-based MD Medicare Choice at midnight after Florida regulators put the HMO into receivership. The HMO has about 16,000 members in Florida and to prevent disruption of care, Medicare will transfer them into a similar HMO run by Humana. Clients can continue seeing their primary care physician through the end of the year, even if that doctor is not on Humana's network, Medicare officials announced.
Sunrise, FL-based Pediatrix Medical Group has lowered its earnings expectations for the third quarter and announced the completion of two acquisitions. The company said it is seeing lower patient reimbursement rates and fewer neonatal ICU patients and expects to report earnings per share for the quarter of 81 to 83 cents. Pediatrix also said it completed the acquisition of Critical Health Systems of North Carolina and Nashville, TN-based Maternal-Fetal Group.
Although South Florida's top federal prosecutor said healthcare fraud is "massive" in the region, the creation of a federal Medicare Fraud Strike Force has boosted the number of prosecutions. The Strike Force is led by South Florida and Justice Department prosecutors and FBI and Health and Human Services agents. In the 12 months that ended at the end of September, 245 South Florida defendants were charged with filing almost $793.5 million in false Medicare claims, U.S. Attorney R. Alexander Acosta said.
A national campaign is trying to get Mexicans to collectively trim about 2 million pounds. The project is one of several new efforts to fight obesity in Mexico, which is on track to catch up with the United States within a decade as one of the world's fattest countries. Nearly half of Mexico's 110 million people are overweight, and the number of fat children has climbed 8% a year in the last decade.
