Do you have an appointment?

February 13, 2009 – 2:13 pm by Steven Niles

More and more physicians are opening their doors to sales reps by appointment only. Considering the appointment-based nature of the physician’s office, the only real surprise here is that it’s taken this long for the trend to gain traction.

According to research conducted by SK&A, a provider of healthcare information solutions and research, the percentage of physicians who require appointments crept up from 31.4% to 38.5% between June and December 2008. This according to a survey of U.S. medical practices designed to determine their policies for allowing healthcare industry sales representatives access to physicians and other prescribers. Meanwhile, the percentage of physicians who forbid sales-rep access altogether rose from 22.3% to 23.6%.

Dave Escalante, president and CEO of SK&A, notes that today’s field sales forces are facing increased limitations, as their influence on prescribers is being highly scrutinized. He believes that there is an opportunity for marketing and sales to understand these trends and the advantages of the many more touch points available to reach and educate physicians beyond the traditional office call.

When it comes to interacting with physicians, however, the key is becoming not so much how a rep gets the attention of the physician once he or she is in the office. Rather, how does the rep secure the all important appointment now increasingly necessary to get in the door in the first place. I asked Mr. Escalante what he would suggest to reps looking to make sure they’re booked on the physician’s crowded calendar.

“The keys to the kingdom are held by the receptionists and office managers,” Mr. Escalante told me. “One of the best ways for a sales rep to get an appointment is to maintain existing relationships with these people, build new ones, and understand emerging access policies and the site and group level.”

Physicians across every type of practice are moving towards placing restrictions on sales-rep access. For example, about 40% of general practitioners said they require appointments versus 33% who said so six months earlier. The same is true for specialty physicians: 36.6% now require appointments compared with 28.31% last June.

SK&A found that physicians working in group practices that are owned by health systems or hospitals are less likely to see sales reps and more likely to require appointments than those who are working in independently owned practices. The survey found 34.7% medical practices owned by health systems have “no-see” policies and 52% require appointments. When a medical practice is owned by a hospital, sales reps can expect more obstacles trying to reach physicians. The survey found 31.2% of practices owned by hospitals have “no-see” policies and 44.6% require appointments.

Physicians working in offices with 10 or more practicing physicians are more likely to restrict access than physicians working in smaller offices of one to two doctors. 14% of group practices have a general policy to restrict access to physicians at all their office locations.

Also, access to physicians varies by region, with physicians practicing in the Southern U.S. being the most accessible and the Western U.S. being the least. The survey found major Metropolitan Statistical Areas may not follow the regional trend. In the San Francisco MSA, for example, physician access is more than 56% more restrictive than the regional average.

Tags: research, Sales force effectiveness, SK&A, survey