An Exploratory Study in Business Strategy and Service Marketing of the Rehabilitation and Physical Therapy in Taiwan
Date Issued
2010
Date
2010
Author(s)
Wei, Wen-Yi
Abstract
Physical therapy and rehabilitation medicine has been entered Taiwan over 52 years. Since our elder people will continue grow up, physical therapy and rehabilitation will play an important role to sustain mobility, activity of daily life, and quality of life for our people. But our rehabilitation and physical therapy industry environment is getting worse and more competitive due to the reimbursement of our national healthcare insurance is getting stridently, and there are more and more rehabilitation institutions set up. Compare to the prosperity of American rehabilitation industry, there must be something we could learn from their evolutions. Researcher want to study the business condition of our rehabilitation institutions, and research the development of American rehabilitation industry and the experience of key rehabilitation company of the industry as the benchmark of our rehabilitation industry and institutions.
This research will discuss the following questions: 1. Comparing to American rehabilitation industry to find out the growth opportunities of our rehabilitation and physical therapy industry. 2. Comparing to the rehabilitation institutions with different business type to find out their business strategy in this time and their growth directions in the future. 3. Giving our rehabilitation institutions and physical therapy practices suggestions in operating business in the future by our research findings. 4. Giving the different rehabilitation institutions and physical therapy practices suggestions in planning and implementing their service marketing strategy.
This research is an exploratory study conducted by case study and secondary data literature. This research analyzed the rehabilitation industry of U.S. and Taiwan by the secondary data like historical documents, archives, and related cases reports, and draw up the strategy configuration of the American rehabilitation enterprises like NovaCare Inc., and Select Medical Corporation. In order to understand the business strategies and service marketing policies of Taiwan’s rehabilitation institutions, this research chose four institutions with different types as the business cases and interviews their owner of the institutions.
Four growth opportunities of Taiwan’s rehabilitation and physical therapy industry were found in the research: 1. Develop self-paying medical services; 2. Join the value chain of other industries; 3. Keep the NHI payment as major revenue source; 4. Expand the business scale by franchised or merge and acquisition.
By comparing different types rehabilitation institutions in their business strategies and future growth directions, four points are concluded: 1. The rehabilitation department in hospitals should choose differentiation strategy and provide differentiated services by integrating other professionals in the hospital. The department would choose product expansion as their growth direction by adding some self-paying services along with the existed services. 2. The rehabilitation clinics should choose cost leadership strategy, aim at the major customers and offer services for them, competing with other rivals by efficient treatment process and affiliation with their clients. They would choose market penetration as their growth directions in the future and control their peripheral communities as markets. 3. Self-paying rehabilitation clinics should choose differentiation strategy; provide total solutions to the premier customers. They would choose vertical integration as their growth directions and develop physical products to last their business in the long run. 4. Physical therapy practices should choose focusing strategy; focus on specified techniques, aiming at the specified customers to gain word-of-mouth effect. They would choose market expansion by franchising to increase new practices and enter new geographic market.
Seven suggestions to Taiwan’s rehabilitation and physical therapy manager were concluded: 1. Operating chain practices should be considered; 2. Create differentiated services by inter-discipline cooperation; 3. Building the vision, values and culture of the organization is very critical; 4. See the employee’s satisfaction as a managerial indicator; 5. Set up marketing and sales positions and improve staff’s selling techniques; 6. Manage the brand of the institution is more beneficial than manage personal brand; 7. Adapt IT systems to improve the managerial efficiency and the correctness of decision.
The findings give suggestions to different rehabilitation institutions in service marketing planning and implementing:1. The rehabilitation department in hospitals should assign people who are responsible for sales and marketing in their organization. They should offer the experience which is different from NHI rehabilitation services by sales training and encourage methods. 2. The rehabilitation clinics should put effort in public relationship activities and build strong relationship with the residents in peripheral communities. Manage the employee’s satisfaction; make customers satisfy with the service provided by the satisfied staff. 3. The self-paying rehabilitation clinics should develop the brand value of their institution. Educate their staff to develop their skills and empower them for operating in the long run. 4. The physical therapy practices should set up company to develop the franchised professionals and market the institution’s brand.
Subjects
Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation
Physical Therapy
Industry Analysis
Strategic Market Analysis
Business Strategy
Service marketing
Self-Paying Medical Services
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