The Week That Was: Put Your Font to Work

While we can’t say for certain what gets said during marketing meetings at every healthcare startup, we’re guessing it goes a little something like this:

“I’m not like a regular healthcare company. I’m a cool healthcare company.”

Take any Instagram ad or subway sign or marketing email from a health tech startup, and you’ll see a clear, consistent attempt from these new companies to differentiate themselves from larger legacy healthcare companies.

But these attempts go way beyond the use of consumer-friendly messaging, all the way down to the very font companies are using. Investigative reporting from Lydia Ramsey at Business Insider found that three companies – Flatiron Health, One Medical, and Oscar Health – are using nearly the same exact font. According to Flatiron’s head of brand, the “Tiempos” font is just the right mix of sophistication, warmth, humanity, trust and maturity. Who knew a font could do so much?

As for some of the very detail-oriented members of TWTW team? We haven’t been this excited since the last AP stylebook update and may use Tiempos in the near future.

Dude, where's my insurance?

This week the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) released its latest analysis of healthcare coverage in the U.S. Its findings were nothing to celebrate. In 2018, there were 28.9 million uninsured people in America, the highest uninsured rate in four years. The CBO’s report corroborates similar findings from other sources like Gallup and the Kaiser Family Foundation.

As we discussed the news with our colleagues, we found ourselves coming back to two fundamental questions: 

• Why are people losing insurance coverage?
• What does this mean for the biopharma companies we work with and the industry overall?

And, because there’s nothing like a good visual aid to help break down health insurance topics, we developed the below chart. We hope it helps.
  

Design: Madelyn Boyle/Syneos Health

Still have questions? Here’s a list of resources that might help.

If you… 

• Want to know more about why insurers are raising premiums, read this.
• Are confused about why nearly half of the uninsured population is ineligible for coverage under the ACA, take a look at this.
• Don’t understand the history and status of Medicaid work requirements, read this. 
• Want to know which states haven’t expanded Medicaid, look here.   

Who wrote this? The managing editors of TWTW are Dana Davis, who appreciates the AP confirming the latest style updates for Beyoncé’s name, and Randi Kahn, who still dislikes the AP rules on serial (Oxford) commas. 

Syneos Health Communications' Reputation & Risk Management Practice is a team of healthcare communications consultants, policy-shapers and crisis response specialists. We provide unique solutions to the evolving communications challenges in today’s healthcare industry, using evidence-based approaches to help our clients successfully navigate the most sensitive of situations.

Got thoughts? Contact Dana

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Image credits: young man by monkik from the Noun Project, Podium by Mike Wirth from the Noun Project, questions by Gregor Cresnar from the Noun Project

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