CURRENT TRENDS IN ACCESS
According to Health Strategies Group's 2008 "State of the Selling Environment," the vast majority of sales calls continue
to feature a brief representative–physician interaction where the physician signs for samples and little or no product discussion
occurs (see Figure 1).
A typical "sample signature only" call averages slightly more than one minute. When physicians engage in brief discussions
while signing for samples, the call expands to almost three minutes.
Figure 1
|
Primary care physicians engage in longer (10-minute) discussions about once a day, specialists even less often. These may
occur during unannounced drop-in visits – however, you are more likely to enjoy this opportunity when you schedule an appointment.
Figure 2
|
Breakfast and lunch meetings average more than 20 minutes, and remain the most common setting in which multiple product discussions
take place, often to multiple physicians and other providers, such as NPs and PAs.
TOUGH TO ACCESS: HARD-SEE AND NO-SEE PHYSICIANS
Today, representatives estimate that there are nearly equal numbers of easy-to-see and hard-see and no-see physicians (see
Figure 2). Two trends converged to produce this balance:
- The proportion of easy-to-see doctors fell (down to 40% from 44% in 2006)
- The proportion of hard-see/no-see doctors rose (up to 38% from 33% in 2006)
Figure 3
|
Most, but not all, representatives experienced these trends locally in their territories. For example, representatives seeing
increases in hard-see and no-see physicians outnumbered those seeing decreases by almost 15 to 1 (see Figure 3).
In a previous analysis, we found that hard-see and no-see doctors divide among three segments:
Figure 4
|
In 2008, "legislators" represent the largest proportion of hard-see and no-see doctors, followed by "monarchs" (see Figure
4).
