Are you getting ready to manage demand for healthcare services? Now that the election is over and the course is more clearly outlined for implementation of the provisions of the Affordable Care Act, you need to start thinking about demand management heading to 2014. Not demand generation, but demand management. The role of healthcare marketing departments for the most part has been demand generation. Put "heads in the beds" and get paid for the production of care. Now, with a potential 40 million plus healthcare consumers having some type of insurance, the pent-up demand for healthcare services will be unleashed. That's good from the standpoint of the market in meeting the needs of healthcare consumers, but bad from the market standpoint of insufficient capacity to meet that demand. Healthcare marketing departments are going to have to learn how to manage demand and move that demand for service to the appropriate care setting and medical practitioner. Market some services and de-market others. And that is not an easy thing to do, because believe it or not, you are still going to have some demand generation but it will be very different that today. Not everyone will be in an ACO or medical home. Not everyone will be in Medicare or Medicaid. Not everyone will have employer sponsored insurance. Some will buy insurance in the insurance exchanges. Some may not even have insurance at all. So while you are learning to more effectively to mange service demand in an environment of insufficient