Case Study: American Academy Of Family Physicians

Thomas and Maurice (2010) describe various potential issues that can serve as barriers to entry into a particular market. A strong barrier to entry makes it difficult for a new company to enter into a market to compete against existing companies and produce a substitute product. The potential barriers are barriers from economies of scale, governmental or legal barriers, barriers of essential inputs, brand loyalties and consumer lock-in (Thomas & Maurice, 2010).

The company chosen for discussion is the American Academy of Family Physicians (AAFP). The AAFP is the national organization representing 120,000 Family Physicians across our country and territories. The function of the Academy is to provide various services to support the members and promote the specialty. The strategic objectives of the organization are advocacy, practice enhancement, education and health of the public. The Academy is made up of 54 state and territory chapters which consist of a variable number of local chapters. The AAFP is the largest medical specialty organization
Academy services include the production of continuing medical education (CME) for family physicians. Our AAFP CME division is the largest producer of AAFP CME prescribed credits through live courses, enduring products, journals and online activities (COCPD Report, 2014). Membership surveys list CME issues as three of the top five important services provided. Other CME providers produce CME for family physicians; however, no one else has the resources to compete to the same level. Changing rules and regulations increasingly impact the CME to maintain independence from pharmaceutical industry (Lee, 2014). The AAFP is accredited by the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education (ACCME) to provide prescribed CME showing their ability to maintain voluntary standards to prevent biased