Selling to Healthcare Organizations: A Realistic Guide
Healthcare is often described as an attractive market for B2B companies. Large organizations with big budgets, clear problems to solve, and regulatory pressure driving technology adoption. All true. What's less discussed is how brutally difficult the sales process actually is.
If you're considering selling to healthcare organizations, here's what you're signing up for.
The Sales Cycle Is Measured in Years
Enterprise software sales cycles are long. Healthcare sales cycles are longer. A deal that takes 6 months to close in financial services might take 18-24 months in healthcare.
Why? Healthcare organizations are risk-averse to an extreme degree. A bad software decision in most industries means wasted money and frustrated employees. A bad software decision in healthcare could theoretically harm patients. Even when that's not realistic, the culture of caution pervades every purchasing decision.
Multiple stakeholders need to approve purchases: IT security, compliance, clinical leadership, finance, and often the C-suite for significant investments. Getting all of these groups aligned takes time.
Compliance Is Not Optional
HIPAA compliance is table stakes. If your software touches patient data in any way, you need to demonstrate HIPAA compliance before serious conversations can happen. This means:
- Business Associate Agreements (BAAs) with every customer
- Security controls that meet HIPAA requirements
- Incident response procedures
- Regular security audits
- Staff training documentation
Beyond HIPAA, you may encounter state-specific regulations, HITRUST certification requirements, and SOC 2 audits. Large health systems often have their own security questionnaires that can take weeks to complete.
IT Integration Is a Gauntlet
Healthcare IT environments are complex. Electronic Health Records (EHRs) like Epic, Cerner, and Meditech are deeply embedded in clinical workflows. Most useful software needs to integrate with these systems.
EHR integrations are not simple API calls. They require formal partnerships, certification processes, and often custom development. Epic's App Orchard and Cerner's Code programs have their own requirements and timelines. Budget 6-12 months just for integration work.
Even after technical integration, getting IT departments to actually deploy and support new software is another challenge. Healthcare IT teams are typically understaffed and overwhelmed. Your implementation project is competing with dozens of other priorities.
Who Actually Makes the Decision?
Selling to healthcare requires mapping complex organizational structures. The person who wants your software is rarely the person who can approve the purchase.
Clinical staff may see the value immediately but have no budget authority. IT controls implementation but may resist anything that adds to their workload. Finance approves budgets but doesn't understand clinical needs. Compliance can veto anything that introduces risk.
Successful healthcare sales require building champions across multiple departments and giving each stakeholder a reason to support the purchase. This is relationship-heavy, time-intensive work.
Pricing Peculiarities
Healthcare organizations often expect pricing structures that don't make sense in other industries. Per-bed pricing, per-provider pricing, and enterprise licenses with unlimited users are common. Per-seat SaaS pricing that works elsewhere can be a non-starter.
Additionally, many healthcare purchases go through Group Purchasing Organizations (GPOs), which have pre-negotiated contracts with vendors. If you're not on the GPO contract, you may be excluded from consideration regardless of your product's merits.
Where to Start
Given all these challenges, where should a company targeting healthcare actually begin?
Smaller organizations—independent practices, outpatient clinics, small regional hospitals—have simpler purchasing processes. The sales cycle is still longer than other industries but measured in months rather than years. These smaller deals can help you build case studies and references for larger health systems.
Alternatively, find problems that don't touch clinical data. Administrative software, staff scheduling, facility management—these have easier compliance paths and faster sales cycles than anything touching patient information.
Healthcare is a large market with real problems. It's also a market that has broken many startups who underestimated the complexity of selling into it. Go in with realistic expectations and adequate runway, or don't go in at all.