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CAM customers also tend to be in middle-income brackets: 80% have incomes greater than $35,000. Higher levels of education and poorer overall health are also key predictors of consumers" use of CAM in the U.S. About 50 to 66 percent of the nation's health insurers are offering some form of CAM coverage. Growth in CAM coverage is attributable to four factors: consumer demand, legitimacy, market share, and healthcare cost containment.
Patients who use CAM are not necessarily anti-scientific or opposed to conventional medicine, nor do they represent a disproportionate number of the uneducated, poor, or seriously ill. However, many CAM users do believe that the more intensive their use of CAM, the less their need for conventional medical care and prescription drugs. Almost 70% of surveyed patients who used the.
CAM services of Seattle based staff-model HMO Group Health Cooperative said they had reduced their use of physician services and pharmaceuticals.
During the introduction stage, the Mind, Body and Spirit Balance Center will be combining Eastern (or CAM) treatments with traditional Western medicine to treat patients. The uniqueness of these services is limited in size, patients are willing to pay high price, and potential competitors have not start-up. Therefore, it will adopt the slow skimming approach such as launching its services at a high price and low promotion. .
In the growth stage, it will adopt the profit maximization objective to seek as much profit as possible. However, pricing to achieve profit maximization doesn't always lead to high prices. According to Jerome McCarthy and William D. Perreault, low prices may expand the size of services that result in greater sales and profits. For example, when prices of VCRs were very high, only innovators and wealthy people bought them. When Sony and its competitors lowered prices, nearly everyone bought a VCR (page 515).
Mind, Body and Spirit Balance Center will offer consultation with the patient and both practitioners (western and eastern).