Physicians' and consumers' conflicting attitudes toward health care advertising

The purpose of this paper is to explore the conflicting attitudes held by physicians and health care consumers toward health care advertising in an attempt to resolve the question. The paper introduces the differing positions held by the two groups. The rationale behind physicians' attitudes is then presented that advertising can be unethical, misleading, deceptive, and lead to unnecessary price increases. They believe that word-of-mouth does and should play the major role in attracting new patients. The opposite view of consumers is then presented which contends that health care advertising leads to higher consumer awareness of services, better services, promotes competitive pricing, and lowers rather than raises health care costs. The final section of the paper compares the arguments presented and concludes that health care advertising clearly has a place in the health care industry.