Ct Consumer Complaint: Hospitals Stop Wasting Health Care Dollars On Worthless Advertising

Call me a curmudgeon, but is anyone else annoyed by the proliferation of hospital advertising? You literally cannot open a newspaper or turn on the radio or TV without being bombarded with advertisements for hospitals these days. Not since Linda McMahon’s last run for senate have I seen such a massive waste of advertising dollars.

Do I care that St. Francis has a new hospitalist (and what is a “hospitalist,” anyway), that The Hospital For Special Care (it’ll always be New Britain General to me) has a new Orthopedist or that Hartford Hospital has a new miraculous surgical doohickey. I don’t.

The following was written by Don Reder of West Hartford.

What I find much more riveting are the constant struggles between the hospitals and health insurance companies, such as the recent one between Anthem and The Children’s Medical Center.

Hospitals say that they need higher reimbursements so that they can provide the highest level of care to their patients while insurance companies say they need to rein in those reimbursements to maintain reasonable premiums for their insureds. Basically, this translates as: hospitals want to make more money and insurance companies want to make more money. And yet, at the same time the hospitals are crying poverty and telling us those nasty insurance companies are being unfair to them, they are bombarding us with the thrilling news of their latest personnel hires and equipment acquisitions.

The only medical advertisement I’ve found useful was one by my practice group informing the public that they were expanding their hours and days of service. And I know of people who have found it useful to be able to go on-line to see what the wait is at nearby Emergency Departments But an ad for a new hospitalist? Who cares? One wonders how many calls the hospitals get from someone who says, “Hi, I was just diagnosed with cancer and I see you have a new oncologist. Who wants a new oncologist?”

I was born at Hartford Hospital, had my tonsils removed there 50-something years ago, back surgery there 40-something years ago and will probably die there, hopefully some generous number of years in the future. And I think many, if not most, people have similar relationships. And if I need a specialist, I’m not very likely to research back issues of The Courant, but would probably call my physician for a referral.

Not that I have anything against newspapers, the broadcast media or advertising agencies but this escalation in hospital advertising has to be costing millions of dollars a year. My proposal: stop it, just all of you stop the advertising. I bet some hospitals would actually welcome a cease fire in The Hospital Advertising Wars.

This will not only save them millions of dollars but may actually provide a better environment the next time those pesky insurance companies need to negotiate a new contract. Oh, and with the McMahon campaign gearing up again, this will leave more advertising space and time for her to buy.