Healthy Skepticism Library item: 12525
Warning: This library includes all items relevant to health product marketing that we are aware of regardless of quality. Often we do not agree with all or part of the contents.
Publication type: news
19 Percent of Office-Based Physicians Refuse to See Pharmaceutical, Biotech and Medical Device Sales Reps
PharmaLive 2008 Jan 22
http://pharmalive.com/news/index.cfm?articleID=507379&categoryid=9&newsletter=1
Full text:
Based on a comprehensive telephone survey of 180,000 doctors, 19 percent of U.S. office-based physicians refuse to see sales representatives from the drug and device industry at any time, according to the recent study by SK&A Information Services, Inc. Another 22.7 percent of doctors require the reps to set an appointment. These findings underscore the increasing limitations that physicians are imposing on visits from the medical industry.
“The old days of walking into an office and bumping into the doctor are waning,” said Dave Escalante, President of SK&A. “Today’s industry sales reps will have more success with product detail efforts if they understand and adhere to these new physician access protocols and visitation standards.”
About 5 percent of physicians will visit with reps only on specific days of the week and 3.2 percent have restricted their access to specific times of the day with lunch time being the most popular. However, on the positive side, nearly 73 percent of physicians surveyed will take details from reps at any time of day or any day of the week.
The days of the week a physician will meet with a sales rep vary only slightly, with Tuesday edging out the other days by a slim margin. Friday afternoons and Monday mornings are the least popular times of day to get a physician’s attention.
The study was performed in the fourth quarter 2007. SK&A will continue the survey until it has called all 656,000 practicing physicians in its database. The first report covering all physicians is scheduled to be complete and available in the second quarter 2008. The report will break down physician access by specialty and geography. Custom reports will also be available, on request. New physician access reports will be released every six months. The data is available for sale to assist pharmaceutical, biotech, medical device and other healthcare marketers in appointment setting and connecting with physicians through direct sales channels.
