KFF Health News, Darius Tahir
Shannon Sharp had one of the 15 -minute Internet Infamy moment. The social media exploded in September after the retired Denver Bronkos’s tight end -accidentally broadcast some of his intimate activities online.
One of his sponsors used that moment: Telehealth Company RO sells various prescription drugs for erectile dysfunction, hair and weight loss. The company’s spokeswoman has improved social media campaigns on social platforms X for Sharpe’s experience in his experience with the company’s erectile dysfunction.
The advertisement was more than just an attempt to grab a corporate cubes on a runaway social media locomotive. Direct to consumers, a group of direct telehelus companies, is ubiquitous in almost all media format, looking for patients who are interested in low stigma, low -fas, low touch, and high -margin health products.
They are in your favorite podcast, behind your gym cable TV. According to the analysis of ISPOT.TV, a television advertising tracking company provided by KFF Health News, 13 Telehealth entities spent a total of 111 million TV ads in 2023.
According to interviews with marketing staff, advertisements have a well -known influencer who pays four numbers to post a snapshot or short video to Instagram to advertisements. Masu. Three of the published Telehels companies spent more than $ 1.4 billion in advertising, sales and marketing in 2023.
Corporate advertising usually emphasizes the convenience of the opposite healthcare system. They promise contraceptive or care without judgment on conditions such as erectile dysfunction and hair loss that have been traditionally accused. As companies expand, they are trying more complex medicines, such as mental health and obesity care.
Critics warn the service provided by Telehels companies that may shorten patients who need closely and sensitive precautions. Researchers have different quality of Telehealth Services, and some say that telehealth companies do not provide almost no follow -ups and consistent care from doctors.
Nevertheless, they agree that care is fundamentally different from traditional styles. ATEEV MEHROTRA, a professor of brown university public health studying TeleHealth, states:
He usually said that the patient would go to a doctor with complaints. Therefore, the parties find the diagnosis and the medicine as needed. In contrast, Telehealth Companies ads are combined with clinicians who guide the patient to perform their own diagnosis and prescribe drugs that patients already want.
Under the medicine in this style, the clinician said mehrotra said, “I’m now a screamer, and I just want to make sure that the drug is safe for the patient.”
Mehrotra said that the model could function for certain types of care, such as contraceptive. He and some of his colleagues conducted a research on recruiting patients with standardized back stories to use startups on the Internet. In general, this survey showed that the service was well functioned.
Harley Diamond, a patient of NURX, is a NURX patient, a startup that provides contraceptive and other services, and offers an example of how to work well for these companies. After seeing Instagram ads, she signed up to contracept. She lives in Tennessee. Tennessee is a red state that is difficult to access contraception. The local clinics were closed, and the arson criminals have burned the planned parent -child relationship. (The facility has been resumed recently.)
However, when she turned to NURX for mental health, she noticed that the service was confused and that it was lacking in convenience.
She said that the company’s app will send frequent questionnaires on drug symptoms and reactions. “There is no comfortable face to verify you,” she wrote in an email to KFF Health News. The questions were the same every time, and she told a new doctor in all interactions.
“I can explain myself to new people every month and feel like I have to start with zero,” she said.
She said that when she expressed concerns -for example, regarding the side effects of the antidepressants she had taken -that her protocol wouldn’t change, and it would take a day to hear the reply. In many cases, she said she wouldn’t respond at all.
Rajani Rao, a senior vice president of NURX, said that he “constantly working” to “experience a large number of patient care requests” and to improve the response time. In mental health, most of the NURX patients have experienced the elimination of symptoms after six months.
Lao also called NURX to provide an “integrated care team” and use a language reflected throughout the industry. For example, RO states that the care is available in the patient’s preference time and format, and is auditing the quality of the service.
Continuous care is important to make sure that mental health patients are taking appropriate medication, and if they have not experienced side effects, Reshma Ramachandran, Yale Associate Professor, has a unique Telehelus site. We are conducting a secret shopper research. 。
Furthermore, Ramachandran said that many mental health drugs were the best treatment and optimal.
RAMACHANDRAN believes that diamond -like dissatisfaction may be spread based on team research. She said she was frustrated by the “very groovy and glossy” paintings drawn by teleheles ads.
RamachanDran said her research is still being considered for publishing to medical magazines. However, she provided preliminary results to the Congress Office, which examines the Telehels division.
Last year, Senator Dick Darbin, the Democratic Party of Illinois, and Senator Mike Brown, a member of the Indiana Republican member, introduced laws to regulate some teleheles advertising. Darbin’s spokesman said he would re -introduce the bill this year.
Dariust@kff.org,@dariustahir
Initially issued: January 31, 2025 3:10 pm EST
