Health Insurance Articles
How Health Insurance Websites Advertise Over The Counter Medicines
2011-01-03
Health insurance websites offer a lot of information that can be useful to consumers who are shopping around for a new policy or who are looking for ways to control their health insurance costs. However, sometimes they contain a bit more than meets the eye. For example, many health insurance providers will use their websites as a sort of advertising tool for over the counter medicines, whether they do so implicitly or explicitly. To understand why, it's helpful to think of the advantages of taking this approach from the insurer's point of view.
Health insurance websites often advertise over the counter medicines for two reasons: it's profitable from an advertising point of view and it allows the insurance company to save money on claims. The profit from ads is fairly simple to understand. By renting out space in health insurance websites, providers are able to make extra money that they wouldn't have had access to otherwise. A banner ad or a small ad on the side of a page can mean thousands of dollars for the insurer, and while some don't advertise this directly (either due to the unprofessional appearance that ads may lend a site or due to state laws which prohibit explicit advertising for drug companies), they'll post articles that detail the benefits of over the counter drugs anyways due to the cost-reducing nature of these drugs. When a patient uses over the counter medication, he or she will probably not be making an insurance claim for prescription medication. As many over the counter drugs are very effective at treating common symptoms and they're paid for out of the patient's pocket, doing a little advertising for them can relieve many of the costs that insurance companies deal with in a medical insurance claim.
Of course, some people feel that any advertising of drugs from an insurance provider is unethical, and many insurance companies will not discuss drugs on their websites other than to explain how the coverage that they offer will pay for certain medications. Nevertheless, insurance companies often send out literature that encourages customers to look for over the counter options that can treat their illnesses and relieve their symptoms. From the point of view of the health insurance companies, this is a win-win which helps policy holders to keep their own costs down while eliminating bills that the insurance company would have otherwise had to pay. Whether they use health insurance websites or the actual insurance quotes and contracts that they provide, health insurance companies know how to keep their costs down by doing some advertising for over the counter medications.
