There are few audiences more captive than the folks sitting in a doctor’s office waiting room.
Sure, you can pass the time with weeks-old copies of Time or People magazine, Instagram, email or TikTok for the we’re-still-on-mom-and-dad’s-insurance crowd. But you’re stuck there until the doctor sees you.
Which is why it shouldn’t be surprising that waiting-room walls are being colonized by screens. Because of course they are. From taxis and gas pumps to elevators and airports, if a surface can become inventory, it will. Call it the first law of ad tech.
But being in proximity isn’t the same as paying attention. Just because there’s a screen in front of someone doesn’t mean they’re looking at it.
What makes being in a doctor’s waiting room different, though, says Kate Calabrese, senior SVP of client solutions at PatientPoint, is the person’s mindset. They’re already thinking about their health in an environment they trust, she said.
Reading the room
PatientPoint operates the largest point-of-care ad network in the US, with 145,000 digital screens in 32,000 medical offices nationwide, which is more locations than Starbucks and McDonald’s combined.
Beyond waiting-room screens, the network spans digital check-in portals, exam rooms and back offices. PatientPoint can also reach people on their phones before and after a visit.
According to its internal research, six in 10 consumers say they’ve considered switching to a product they saw advertised in a doctor’s office.
Pharma companies have always been PatientPoint’s core clients. Think prescription drugs and treatments for chronic conditions. But the client base has been expanding as wellness becomes a mainstream consumer category, Calabrese said. CPG brands, over-the-counter medications and supplement makers want to reach people who are actively managing their health.
But sensitive environments require a sensitive touch. Health data is highly regulated, and a privacy misstep carries consequences far beyond bad headlines.
PatientPoint says it doesn’t collect any PII. Rather than tracking individuals, in-office ad targeting relies on aggregate claims-level data to understand the likely makeup of a given practice or specialty.
A dermatology practice, for instance, might skew toward ads for skin care products or treatments for psoriasis, not because PatientPoint knows who’s in the waiting room but because it knows what kinds of patients tend to visit that type of office.
PatientPoint also has a product called Precision, which is direct to consumer. It serves ads inside patient portals and digital check-in platforms using consented electronic health record data – things like diagnosis codes, prescription history and insurance carrier – but only after an explicit opt-in process that’s kept separate from HIPAA authorizations.
“Everything is tokenized, so we don’t know who the individual is,” Calabrese said, “but we do have an understanding of what’s pertinent to them from an educational standpoint.”
Mobile targeting, meanwhile, works pretty much in the same way as a traditional programmatic buy. PatientPoint identifies people based on their recent health-related online searches and then it creates geofences around doctors’ offices so it can serve standard display ads just before, during and right after a visit.
But there’s no retargeting once someone leaves a doctor’s office, which, given the sensitivity of health data, would be a different conversation entirely. “We’re not doing any type of audience extension outside of our platform,” Calabrese said.
The Big Screen
Despite the need for certain restrictions, however, the category is growing.
Pharma spending on point-of-care marketing hit roughly $1.2 billion last year after crossing the $1 billion mark the year before, according to data from the Point of Care Marketing Association.
Which is why PatientPoint decided to start hosting upfront presentations. The first one was in 2024.
The upfronts every May are usually the domain of TV networks and, more recently, streaming platforms, not ad networks for screens in doctors’ offices. But it makes sense if you think about it. PatientPoint is video-forward and its partnerships typically renew annually. So why not woo buyers the old-fashioned way?
This year’s event, which took place in midtown Manhattan, drew more than 150 media buyers and featured programming that leaned more into health than Hollywood.
Actress Olivia Munn, for example, spoke about her breast cancer journey, and PatientPoint’s CEO did a fireside chat with Katie Couric about her late husband’s experience with colorectal cancer, using the occasion to launch a new campaign featuring Couric called “The Big Screen” (very clever), promoting cancer screening and the importance of early detection. The ads are running across PatientPoint’s network, of course.
But PatientPoint has also been busy behind the scenes.
The company recently named Jeremy Hlavacek, a veteran of The Weather Company, IBM Watson Advertising and Experian, as GM of advertising. And it also just got MRC accreditation for digital campaign reporting and performance metrics.
It’s all part of the pitch to buyers. Calabrese declined to share specifics on its upfront commitments, but said that interest has been strong.
“I mean, it’s not like you randomly find yourself in a doctor’s office,” she said. “These are high-intent moments, which is an opportunity to connect with very relevant audiences.”
🙏 Thanks for reading! As always, feel free to drop me a line at allison@adexchanger.com with any comments or feedback. Also, for all the cat parents out there, this is so real.
🎟️ In other mews, have you snagged your ticket yet to our Programmatic IO event coming up in New York City on September 28 and 29?
💡 We’ve got a great agenda lined up for you, including a panel on AI governance with Yum! Brands, The Brandtech Group and BBDO, and a session hosted by privacy attorney Daniel Rosenzweig of DBR Tech Law on why it’s critical to get AI right from Day One.
