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Marketers
Pricing
Marketing
Our
marketing plan and approach is simple:
1. Identify the
user.
2. Secure a
second party
endorsement
.
3. Secure a
third party
payment
.
Candidates for CompuMed are easy to identify. Homecare nurses, discharge
planners, case managers and others involved with the care and oversight of
those taking medication are keenly aware of who should have CompuMed. Ask
them and they can often think of several individuals needing CompuMed.
Endorsements are quickly forthcoming. Doctors, pharmacists, nurses and
other healthcare professionals will often say something like, "Mr. Jones,
you could really use CompuMed. I'd like to prescribe it for you." Or, "Mrs.
Smith, CompuMed would really help you with all the medication you take."
Third party payments have been slower in coming, but are important if many
elderly will benefit from CompuMed. Several factors have contributed to the
slowness of payors to cover CompuMed.
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First,
the status quo is hard to change. That is, the healthcare "system" is
'curative and institutional' oriented rather than 'preventative and
home based.' This leads to a natural resistance to change and a
hesitancy to accept new technology that replaces old methods. In
reality, Payors often pay for a hospitalization due to non-compliance
at an average cost of $2,700 than spend anything to keep an individual
home and compliant! Why!? Again, because of the natural inertia of the
status quo. Fortunately, these attitudes and views among policy makers
are slowly changing as the pressure on costs and desire for homecare
become greater. |
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Second,
there is often so much red tape and paperwork involved that it is a
challenge for a small company with a niche product like CompuMed to
secure coverage on a national scale. This is particularly true with
Medicare. Here at CompuMed, we have decided that the Federal Government
does, indeed, know how to cut red tape . . . they do it lengthwise with a dull butterknife! |
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Finally,
our experience has shown that Payors are trained to say "no" to new
technologies unless there is overwhelming public or political pressure.
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Generally,
the closer to the patient the payor is, the greater likelihood CompuMed will
be paid for. We have been successful in a number of states with Medicaid
and waiver programs.
Our marketing success does not rest fully on the willingness of the public
sector payors to pay for CompuMed. Many in the private sector, particularly family members, purchase or rent CompuMed for those they care for.
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