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8 Essentials of Contract Law in Healthcare Equipment You Need to Know

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Healthcare is one of the most heavily regulated industries in the country. 

Every action related to healthcare involves some type of written contract—whether between doctors and patients, suppliers and hospitals, nurses and doctors, and so on.

As a supplier or manufacturer, you deal with contracts between all parties in one form or another.

Understanding the intricacies of contract law in healthcare is key to avoiding massive problems and keeping healthy relationships.

What Types of Laws Impact Healthcare Equipment and Technology Contracts?

Regulations impact everything from pricing and expirations down to locations and usage. 

Stark Law

On the surface, Stark Law seems easy to avoid. Stark Law prevents conflicts of interests, prohibiting physician self-referral anywhere the physician might have a financial interest. 

Different clauses fall under Stark Law as well, such as the Anti-Kickback Statute. 

Dig deeper and you’ll find Stark Law covers a wide range of scenarios—including some relating to equipment and leasing. 

HIPAA

HIPAA contracts and regulations protect patient information. Years ago, HIPAA was the last of worries for most equipment suppliers and manufacturers. The explosion in digital records and smart equipment, however, has changed the game. 

Certificate of Need

Certificate of Need laws require a hospital or physician office to prove there’s a legitimate market need before expanding, building, or even acquiring new equipment like beds in some cases. 

CoN laws vary widely by state. Meanwhile, some states don’t even have CoN laws on the books. Although tempting to assume the burden falls on your buyer to establish need, it’s smart to familiarize yourself with the laws in states you operate. 

What You Need to Know About Contract Law in Healthcare for Equipment and Facilities 

41% of people already don’t trust brands to remain truthful. The stakes are especially high in industries like healthcare supplies and equipment where trust is literally a matter of life or death.

Physician and hospital reputations also depend on your knowledge of regulations and contract law in healthcare. Look at the auto industry: The Takata airbag recall sent shockwaves through every major manufacturer’s reputation. 

Similar mishaps with healthcare equipment or supplies happen all the time. 

Keep the following essentials in mind to protect yourself and build trustworthy relationships with your partners.

1. Outsourcing Your Contracts Could Earn You a Violation

When you outsource your contracts, you’re also outsourcing compliance. Keeping your contract work in-house ensures transparency. You’ll always have control over the details.

2. Automatic Renewals Can Work Against You

Some types of contracts require renegotiations or inspections. In these cases, auto-renewing your contracts could put you in violation of Stark Laws or other compliance regulations. 

3. Unsecure Technology Puts You at Risk

Equipment with smart software that integrates patient records poses a huge risk with data breaches. Make sure to review how HIPAA applies to your technology and which contracts in healthcare to work out with physicians and hospitals in terms of responsibility and data sharing.

4. Certain Technology Requires Licensing Fees

Commercial licensing violations are extremely costly. Depending on the copyright law, both suppliers and physicians could be responsible for paying licensing fees or royalties. 

5. Innovative Equipment Might Require a Certificate of Need

Hospitals have huge legal teams to manage CoN laws. Doctors at small practices, however, rely on your knowledge to make smart decisions. Set yourself apart from competitors by doing the research yourself and helping buyers navigate the local regulations.

6. Marketing Matters

Influencer marketing might be tempting, but tread carefully. Healthcare influencers like physicians could create a huge conflict of interest and violation of Stark Law, although currently a legal gray area.

Likewise, how you market your products, the language you use, and the conditions you treat all require careful configuration. The FTC cracks down on false claims and subtle marketing language in healthcare all the time. You don’t want to put your contracts in healthcare at risk from a simple marketing mishap.

7. What About Repairs?

As a healthcare supplier or manufacturer, you deal with high-value contracts. Losing a contract for a hospital system, for example, could be a disaster. 

Imagine a hospital assumes repairs are covered for a year and a $20,000 piece of equipment breaks down. Not negotiating contract terms for things like repairs and maintenance could ruin that relationship forever.

8. Comprehensive Writing is Key

When legal issues arise—no matter the entities involved—you don’t want anything left to interpretation. 

If there’s any uncertainty in terms of pricing, relationships, shipping, or maintenance, always assume it could be used against you. For example, who holds the burden of risk if a physician harms someone while using your equipment? 

You need a team of writers and law professionals on your side to draft proper contract law in healthcare.

Enhance Your Sales and Marketing with Comprehensive Content

Useful and relevant content shows your audience that you’ve done your research and you understand their biggest concerns. In an industry like healthcare supplies, building authority is key to earning trust. 

Doctors and hospitals are busy. Don’t wait for them to research your organization’s history and expertise. Show them right away with high-quality thought leadership content in your industry.

At Share Moving Media, we provide regular healthcare content tips, research, and advice backed by decades of experience. Sign up for our Marketing Minute to stay updated.

The Changing Face of Content Marketing

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Content marketing in healthcare has changed quite a bit as the world rapidly adjusts to upcoming technologies and all that it has to offer. While digital journals in healthcare aren’t exactly a new concept, they are quickly becoming the expectation when it comes to publishing relevant information in the world of healthcare.  

Digital health is quickly becoming the new norm, especially in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. This term refers to the practice of using various technologies to provide data access to everyone in the healthcare industry – patients included. The end goal of digital health is to foster an equal patient-doctor relationship. 

With digital health on the uprise, does that mean that print media in the industry is on the way out?

Is Print Media Dead in the Water?

Is print media dead in the world of healthcare? Absolutely not – but it has its time and place. In the healthcare field, medical professionals must be able to find information in a moment’s notice, and nothing makes that easier than digital journals. They are also an excellent resource for medical teams to share with their patients when they need answers to their questions.

Here’s the thing – print media is still a relevant option when it comes to healthcare marketing tools. In fact, a study by MarketingProfs showed that print ads were not only easier to digest by the public, but that consumers trusted print ads 34% more than search engine ads – something worth noting when considering digital advertising in healthcare.  

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However, when it comes to creating and sharing relevant information amongst professionals and patients alike, digital media is the way to go. It is the most natural solution as far as digital health is concerned. Digital journals in healthcare give instant access to doctors, marketers, patients, and the general public when it comes to sharing relevant updates in the world of healthcare. 

Not only that, but it’s the perfect solution for medical facilities that are turning their focus to sanitary marketing. Again, sanitary marketing isn’t a new concept; however, in light of the current pandemic, it’s never made more sense. The concept, in a nutshell, is the safe delivery of marketing communications and the sharing of information in a way that informs without manipulating. 

Since more people are now restricted from in-house visits with their physicians and rely heavily on telehealth, it makes sense to have digital journals available. This allows healthcare professionals to share the materials with those who ask for more information or better references. It also helps medical facilities move away from unsanitary marketing practices that leave consumers with more questions than answers. 

Why Digital Journals in Healthcare Make Sense

Now, when we talk about digital journals in healthcare, we are talking about the genre as a whole. When most people think medical journals, they often think of the big wigs, including:

  • The Lancet
  • New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM)
  • Journal of American Medical Association

These journals have a heavy focus on studies of various practices and theories. What they can lack, however, is the simplicity in language that is required for the general public. The good news is that there are dozens of other reputable digital journals available for the public, including:

The goals of these digital journals are to keep the public informed of the goings-on in the healthcare industry – an industry that can get extremely complicated, very quickly. They break down the complicated jargon and turn the content into something that is not only easily sharable but much easier for the average reader to understand. 

Using Digital Journals to Foster Relationships Between Professionals and the Public

Now, the general public is very unlikely to head to Google and start searching for digital journals to help them with a medical problem. Instead, they’ll likely talk with their doctor and ask them for more information. The medical team will then provide them with relevant sources to help guide them on their search.

While digital journals can be very technical in nature, they are still an excellent source of content when optimized correctly. Remember, the goal of these journals is to foster positive relationships between medical teams and their audience. So, that means these journals need to be answering essential questions that patients are likely to ask and use both a language and tone that are easily understandable to those who will be reading them. 

Translating the complicated jargon used throughout the healthcare industry can be challenging for some, which is why it’s crucial to have the right team on your side to help you break it all down into something that can be shared with your audience. 

Share Moving Media Can Help

Here at Share Moving Media, we understand that creating the right content for your audience can be somewhat challenging. Our team of trained professionals has the knowledge to help you create amazing content to help your business reach its goals. 

Curious how we can help you create outstanding content? Then contact us today to learn more!

Why Choose the Journal of Healthcare Contracting for Healthcare Marketing?

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The B2B healthcare sales process is much longer than the average sales process, making many of your healthcare marketing strategies challenging to navigate. Newly available technology in marketing and sales also means the industry is changing, adding another challenge to your process. When you stay on top of the latest changes in marketing and healthcare, you can speed up the sales process and see greater returns.

The Journal of Healthcare Contracting is a publication created for the healthcare supply chain and offers solutions for your marketing team to handle the above challenges and more. Learn five ways you can benefit from the publication.

Key Takeaways:

  • The Journal of Healthcare Contracting is Share Moving Media’s publication devoted to the healthcare supply chain.
  • The insights from the magazine will help you create quality, relevant marketing content for your audience.
  • The publication offers advertising options that place your brand before leaders in the healthcare supply chain.

What Is the Journal of Healthcare Contracting?

The Journal of Healthcare Contracting is a publication by Share Moving Media covering news and updates from the healthcare supply chain. The content provides industry insights from healthcare experts to help marketers and purchasers find new opportunities and make data-backed decisions.

Over 12,400 critical stakeholders in the healthcare supply chain receive the publication. It specifically addresses four primary positions within the supply chain:

  • Healthcare systems
  • Healthcare suppliers and manufacturers
  • Hospital distribution
  • Group purchasing networks

How the Journal of Healthcare Contracting Helps Marketers

Marketers can gain unique value from The Journal of Healthcare Contracting because of its targeted content and industry updates, which are foundational to a successful healthcare marketing strategy.

Here are five specific reasons why marketers should use The Journal of Healthcare Contracting as part of their research and marketing efforts.

1. Provides Information You Can Use to Create Quality Content

The information and reports you receive in the publication help you create quality healthcare marketing content that adds value for your clients. About 55% of marketers saw their greatest marketing success from creating quality content.

Quality content is content that:

  • Answers your audience’s questions
  • Is easy to read and understand
  • Dives deeper into a topic
  • Shares valuable insights
  • Provides actionable content your audience can use

Many of the articles and content you read in The Journal of Healthcare Contracting are more in-depth than what you would find through a Google search. You can also find statistics and case studies you could reference in your marketing content to support your claims and add greater value to your audience.

If you are new to healthcare content marketing strategy, the following video outlines some of the best methods for creating quality content.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l84ETfVheOM

2. Helps You Build a Customer-Centric Strategy

The Journal of Healthcare Contracting is the only publication dedicated to the healthcare supply chain. It contains the latest industry data, client behaviors, hospital purchasing trends, and marketing insights specific to your industry. These insights will help you create relevant content for your audience.

Relevant content connects with your readers by showing you understand who they are and their most significant challenges. For example, a supplier needs to know what healthcare workers face daily before offering solutions that resonate with the facilities they market to.

Since the pandemic hit, empathy has been a driving force for many marketers. An empathetic marketer builds authentic relationships with their customers, acknowledges challenges, and pushes sales to the backseat of their marketing efforts. However, you can’t empathize with your audience if you don’t understand where they are today, so audience insights from the industry are vital for a customer-centric marketing strategy.

3. Supports a Data-Driven Marketing Strategy

How do you make your healthcare marketing decisions? If you have been in the business for several years, you might pattern your current efforts off past results. However, times are changing quickly, and what worked last year might not be as effective this year or in five years.

Staying on top of industry trends doesn’t just mean changing as the industry changes. It means predicting where it is heading in the next few years and preparing for that change in advance so that when it arrives, you aren’t left blind-sided and scrambling to catch up with your competition.

A data-driven marketing strategy uses insights from the past and present to predict future trends so that you can have proactive marketing efforts. However, the data from your company only paints half a picture. When you also incorporate predictions and insights from other experts and businesses, like what you can find in The Journal of Healthcare Contracting, you can see the larger picture of where your industry is headed for more accurate marketing predictions.

4. Connects You to Your Target Audience

About 79% of marketers say generating quality leads is their top priority. To attract valuable prospects, you have to place your content in front of the right people. The healthcare supply chain sprawls across various marketing channels. The few channels that contain all your target leads also have thousands of other readers that aren’t prospective buyers.

Advertising through The Journal of Healthcare Contracting puts your content in front of leaders in the healthcare supply chain, which ensures most readers are also quality leads, increasing the return of your marketing efforts.

Some of the readers in the healthcare supply chain you will reach with your content include:

  • 4,200 executives in healthcare contracting for over a thousand health systems
  • 2,500 hospital supply chain executives
  • 700 sales, marketing, logistics, and contracting executives
  • 3,700 suppliers and manufacturers

5. Provides a Greater Return from Your Advertisements

Despite today’s digital advertising and marketing trends, nearly half of U.S. adults still find print advertisements most trustworthy. Marketing campaigns that combine print with digital advertising see a 400% increase in effectiveness.

When you advertise in The Journal of Healthcare Contracting, you can maximize your return by reaching your target audience through one of the most trustworthy mediums for marketing and advertising.

Expand Your Healthcare Marketing Strategy

Share Moving Media has provided valuable training, information, and advertising opportunities for the healthcare supply chain since 1994. You can become a prominent name in healthcare by investing in more significant marketing insights and channels to get you in front of your target audience.

Contact us to learn more about how to market through The Journal of Healthcare Contracting.

5 Benefits of Content Marketing for Supply Chain Leaders

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COVID-19 transformed B2B marketing and sales processes. Over the next few years, the healthcare supply chain will shift away from traditional seller-focused strategies and focus on the buyer’s needs and benefits. Content marketing for supply chain leaders will take center stage in this change as more buyers go directly to suppliers instead of working through sales representatives.

Is your healthcare distribution business ready for this shift?

Learn how you can succeed in this new age of marketing and sales through an innovative healthcare content marketing strategy for supply chain leaders.

Key Takeaways:

  • Content marketing provides essential information for buyers performing the research phase of their journey.
  • Many buyers are interacting directly with suppliers instead of working through sales representatives.
  • Your content improves buyer interactions by controlling your online reputation and providing solutions that build trust with your customers.

What Is Content Marketing for Supply Chain Leaders?

Content marketing for supply chain leaders is creating and distributing online content like blog posts, videos, social media posts, and images. These online assets spread brand awareness and build trust with potential buyers.

While some content might turn into a conversion, most of your content aims to provide valuable information as healthcare facilities and workers find solutions and research their options. Your return from content marketing will be greater customer loyalty, more quality leads, and increased trust in your company.

You will also indirectly increase your sales through content marketing. Only 17% of the B2B sales process includes meeting with suppliers. The rest of that journey often occurs through independent research. You can be part of their journey from an earlier point by offering online content that moves them towards your products and solutions.

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5 Ways Content Marketing Helps the Healthcare Supply Chain

Here are five reasons why content marketing works for healthcare supply leaders and how marketing helps with supply chain issues.

1. Connects You Directly with Buyers

Gartner reports that by 2025 80% of B2B sales between buyers and suppliers will be through digital channels. Additionally, 44% of millennial buyers would rather connect directly to the suppliers instead of working through a sales representative. This is 2.2x more than previous generations.

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With more buyers coming directly to suppliers and distributors, your content and online image matter more. When you invest in content marketing, you offer your customers an alternative approach to learning about your products. This approach will increase your sales because of your broader market reach instead of your marketing team relying only on buyers who still use a traditional sales representative approach to find and purchase new products.

2. Controls Your Online Reputation

Over 89% of B2B buyers will conduct online research before purchasing. What shows up online will influence how buyers view your business. If you don’t create online content to inform buyers about your products, they may get their information from online reviews and less credible sources.

Content marketing helps you control your online reputation by managing what information will appear at the top of your buyers’ searches. Here are several ways you can perform online reputation management through content marketing:

  • Use SEO to rank your content above other information
  • Control what healthcare decision-makers learn about your business and products
  • Use social media accounts to interact with customer feedback
  • Engage personally with buyers on different channels
  • Encourage positive online feedback

Online reputation management doesn’t include deleting or hiding negative reviews. Keeping negative reviews and addressing them for others to see shows buyers that you strive to resolve issues. It also increases your trustworthiness as a business that only has positive reviews might come across as fake.

3. Creates Solutions for Your Buyers

Your business might sell products, but your content marketing sells solutions. Creating audience-centric content is more effective than sales pitches. Today, 87% of B2B marketers focus on informing their audience rather than promoting a company message or agenda.

The healthcare supply chain has many challenges that hospitals and care facilities are concerned about. You can use your content marketing to address those challenges and solve pain points.

For example, supply chain shortages are weighing heavily on many healthcare facilities as they look to diversify their distributors or stockpile supplies to avoid running out. Your content can offer solutions to their supply chain issues and reassurances about how you combat supply chain challenges to avoid delays in delivering their needed products.

4. Increases Your Return on Investment

Content marketing can increase your ROI by decreasing your marketing spending while improving your results. For example, Marketers say content marketing is 3X more cost-efficient for lead generation than PPC, and those with an active blogging strategy are 13X more likely to increase their ROI.

Content marketing is a strategy that continues to work even after you initially invest in content creation. You don’t have to continue to pay like with PPC ads or compensate sales representatives. Instead, your content sells itself and your business if you create it using SEO strategies that help it rank well.

Content marketing works best alongside your other marketing efforts to broaden your reach and fill in marketing gaps different strategies might miss.

5. Builds Trust with Your Buyers

About 88% of marketers said their online content created brand awareness and built credibility with buyers. Those were the top content marketing results that B2B brands saw from their efforts. 

Consider using these methods for building trust with your buyers through your online content:

  • Create thought leadership in the healthcare industry
  • Write at a higher level and avoid fluff
  • Share and support your business values
  • Personalize the customer experience
  • Share case studies and feedback

Most importantly, always remain authentic with your content. Over 90% of customers want to do business with genuine companies. An authentic company is real and honest about who they are, what they value, and what it can offer its buyer.

The following video explains how to make content marketing work in 2022, so you can continue receiving these five results of effective healthcare marketing.

Transform Your Marketing Strategies

Are you ready to upgrade your marketing strategies?

Share Moving Media are experts in healthcare distribution marketing and can help you succeed with your new content marketing strategies. Our training, publications, and industry insights provide the data and knowledge you need to grow an effective content marketing strategy in 2022.

Contact us to learn more about our healthcare marketing solutions.

Why Most Healthcare Content Marketing Fails

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Anyone can do content marketing, but few get it right. Healthcare distributors and manufacturers can spend hours on content but never see a single quality return. Thankfully, there is a way to avoid wasting resources on failed content and consistently see positive healthcare content marketing results.

Learn three pitfalls every B2B content marketer should avoid and three strategies to help your content hit the mark every time.

Key Takeaways:

  • Healthcare content marketing should be audience-centric, which first requires a deep understanding of who your customers are and their needs.
  • Your content should be easy to read and understand, even when addressing complex topics.
  • Let your creativity shine through your text by including images, video, and engaging language.

What Is the Current State of Healthcare Content Marketing?

The healthcare marketing industry, as a whole, has a higher-than-normal conversion rate. Marketers see 5.6% of leads turn into customers, compared to the average conversion rate of 3.9% across all industries.

That rate only shows half the picture. Another pattern you might notice from the conversion rate is that industries with high-value or expensive products also have a lower conversion rate. While healthcare facilities like hospitals might enjoy that high conversion rate, manufacturers and suppliers often don’t see those same numbers.

The average B2B conversion rate is 2.23%, considerably less than the overall healthcare industry.

You aren’t alone if you are seeing those less-than-stellar results from your content marketing. Don’t let those numbers get you discouraged about your content promotion and throw out all your work. Over 60% of leading B2B marketers use a content marketing strategy to get where they are.

You can also see that same success if you use what they learned and avoid major healthcare content marketing pitfalls.

3 Reasons Why Healthcare Content Marketing Fails

Healthcare content marketing can fail for dozens of reasons, but the most common B2B content marketing mistakes fall within three categories.

1. Don’t Understand the Audience

If you don’t know who your content is for, it will never connect with your audience. Over 45% of B2B marketers struggle with identifying the audience for their content. Copying the style and format of others in the industry isn’t the answer. For example, if you write healthcare marketing content the same way hospital marketers write their content, you won’t see the same success even though you are both in healthcare marketing.

Healthcare manufacturers and suppliers are working with businesses, not individuals. Within healthcare businesses, your specific organization will have a small number of hospitals and healthcare facilities that would use your supplies and products. If you want to resonate with those businesses, you must write to the primary decision-makers, use a higher level of content, and address business challenges like revenue and productivity.

2. Don’t Have Scannable Content

Physicians work over 50 hours a week on average, with nearly a quarter of doctors working over 60 hours a week. Content that is hard to read won’t resonate with time-strapped hospital workers looking for solutions.

Long paragraphs, no headlines, and industry jargon are all ways to turn your target audience off your content. Instead, placing scannable headlines that let healthcare workers easily find the most relevant information and plenty of white space and lists will encourage more of your audience to spend a few minutes of their valuable time reading what you have to say.

3. Content Has No Real Value

Marketers often focus on quantity over quality. As a result, many will publish new content multiple times each week. However, if your content only adds to the noise of daily blog posts without bringing any unique value, it wastes time and energy.

Healthcare content writing should not be full of fluff or repeat the same information your competitors covered. Instead, if you want your content to stand out, it must present old information in a new way or share new knowledge to leave readers with a fresh perspective and valuable insights that will help them improve their company.

How to Avoid Those Pitfalls

Include these essential elements in your B2B healthcare content marketing strategy to help your content stand above your competitors.

Focus on Your Audience

Audience-centered content is the only type of content that will see high conversion rates. You may be tempted to focus on how great your company is and the incredible features of your new products. However, that information is meaningless to your audience unless you can relate it to them and how you and your products will address their challenges.

You should write your content with empathy and understanding that places you alongside your reader instead of speaking down to them or criticizing their struggles.

Be a Thought Leader

Your content is your business’s chance to shine above the competition by positioning you as a reliable expert in healthcare. Thought leadership content will express your opinion and share valuable insights about healthcare in a way that builds trust and respect from your readers.

Some benefits of writing thought leadership content include:

  • Boosts your reliability as a company
  • Increases your brand awareness
  • Gives you credibility and authority in your industry
  • Inspires your readers

The 2021 B2B Thought Leadership Impact Study showed that 51% of executives had increased the amount of thought leadership they read. Additionally, 54% of decision-makers spend over an hour a week reading thought leadership content.

Make Your Content Unique

A misconception in B2B content marketing is that your content must be formal and rigid. While you should retain professionalism, that doesn’t go together with stiff content. Your decision-makers are still human and work in a stress-filled environment. Your content can be a mental escape that uses a variety of colors, interesting writing styles, media, and current healthcare content marketing trends that will capture their attention.

Content marketing for healthcare can also include channels outside your website and blog. For example, you can reach more of your audience by tapping into social media, videos, podcasts, and infographics.

The video below shows examples of companies using these three tips for successful B2B content marketing.

Create a Different Type of Healthcare Content

Why settle for average conversion rates when you can position your organization among the leaders in your industry? Take a few minutes to evaluate your current content marketing strategies and look for any areas holding you back.

Contact us about our publications that provide the latest healthcare insights to help you provide valuable content.