Reps still welcome in large numbers, but appointments remain popular

March 17, 2010 – 4:39 pm by Steven Niles

Even as pharmaceutical companies scale back their sales forces, physicians are almost unanimous in reporting visits from as many as 20 sales reps each week from the pharmaceutical or medical device industries. Research conducted by SK&A, A Cegedim Company, found 98% of surveyed physicians open their doors to up to a score of detailers, with nearly half of the physicians surveyed saying they require or prefer appointments to be made by reps prior to one-on-one meetings.

These findings are available in SK&A’s latest Physician Access study, an ongoing survey of U.S. medical offices to determine policies for allowing healthcare industry sales-rep access to physicians and other prescribers. SK&A has been measuring industry access to physicians since June 2007. The recent study is based on telephone interviews with 213,616 medical sites representing 632,000 physicians. SK&A surveys its Office-Based Physician database every six months from its Research Center in Irvine, California.

In the past year, access to physicians has stabilized overall, suggesting that pharmaceutical marketers may have found the right mix of personal and non-personal promotion, according to Dave Escalante, SK&A VP of data and information solutions.

The percent of physicians who require or prefer appointments has increased significantly in the past year, from 38.5% in December 2008 to 49.6% in December 2009, according to the survey. The number of physicians who restrict access altogether has remained unchanged in the past 12 months at about 23%.

The report found specialty physicians are less likely to grant sales reps access than general practitioners. The top-three accessible physicians are allergists/immunologists (4.4% no-see rate), diabetes specialists (7%), and gynecologists (7.5%). The least accessible physicians are diagnostic radiologists (91.8% no-see rate), pathologists (91.7%), and neuroradiologists (91.5%).

Offices with fewer patients seen daily are less likely to host sales reps. Sites with a daily patient volume of one to 10 have a no-access rate of 28.9 percent and those with a daily patient volume of 31-40 have a 13.6 percent no-access rate.

Health system- and hospital-owned offices are less likely to grant sales reps access than offices not part of a health system or owned by a hospital. Health system- and hospital-owned offices have no-access rates of 30.3% and 29.5%, respectively. Non-health system and hospital-owned offices have no-access rates of 21.5% each.

Larger practices are less likely to grant sales reps access. Offices with one to two physicians have a no-access rate of 13.4% while offices with 10 or more physicians have a no-access rate of 42.1%.

Physician offices in the Western U.S. are least likely to allow sales reps access. The South had the lowest no-access rate with 19.4%, and the West had a 28.2% no-access rate.

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