Healthy Skepticism Library item: 18741

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

Silverman E
Doctors To Sales Reps: Go Away And Stay There!
Pharmalot 2010 Oct 13
http://www.pharmalot.com/2010/10/doctors-to-sales-reps-go-away-and-stay-there/

Full text:

So how many reps visit a doctor’s office each week? A survey finds that nearly 98 percent of physicians who are accustomed to multiple visits from sales reps each week reported that the number of appearances were unchanged between June 2010 and December 2009, when the survey was last undertaken. Either way, the implication is that a rep comes knocking comes knocking every two hours.
Meanwhile, about 77 percent of all docs allow reps across the threshhold, a percentage that has actually held steady since a December 2008 survey. And almost half of the docs require reps to make an appointment, a figure that remains unchanged from December 2009, but up from 38 percent at the end of 2008. The survey of 680,000 docs was conducted by SK&A, a market research firm.
Who’s most likely to turn reps away? More than 92 percent of diagnostic radiologists, almost 92 percent of pathologists and about 91 percent of neuroradiologists have a ‘no-access’ policy, and these rates have remaind the same for the past couple of years. On the other hand, allergists and diabetes specialists have welcoming arms (see the results here).
Meanwhile, practices with fewer patients seen each day are less likely to see sales reps. For instance, nearly 29 percent of those with a daily patient volume of one to 10 people refuse reps, while those with a daily patient volume of 31 to 40 have a 13.4 percent no-access rate. Why the discrepancy? SK&A says practices with just one doc are too busy to break from patients to see reps.
At the same time, larger practices are less likely to grant access. Practices with one to two docs have a no-access rate of 13.3 percent, and practices with 10 or more docs have a no-access rate of 42.2 percent. Not surprisingly, offices owned by health systems and hospitals are tougher: these have no-access rates of 30.8 percent and 29.6 percent, respectively.