Diagnosis
More and more doctors are no-see or hard-to-see
Prescription
Changing physicians' perceptions will help open doors
Does the following experience sound familiar?
The instant you walk into a physician's office, the staff informs you that the physician doesn't see representatives anymore.
Valiantly, you try to convince the staff that the physician should continue to see you, but to no avail. You resign yourself
to a smile, a sample drop and one more physician to classify as "no-see." 
Figure 1: Percentage of hard-see/no-see physicians
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This troubling trend of physicians' unwillingness to spend time with representatives is real and impacts your business. Further,
Health Strategies Group's annual industry assessment, "The State of the Selling Environment," found that representatives expect
the percentage of physicians they identify as hard-see or no-see will continue to rise (see Figure 1).
What factors drive physicians to decide the service you provide is unneeded? Is it something you're doing? Something you're
not doing?
Physicians decide to manage or eliminate the time they spend with representatives based on the demands of practicing medicine,
and sometimes due to their conclusions about the value of interacting with the representatives they meet.
You can't do much about the demands of practicing medicine, but you can impact physicians' conclusions about the value of
meeting with at least one representative – you. This article examines today's environment and discusses ways to help you avoid
creating more no-see physicians.
Appreciate your customer's busy schedule
Figure 2: Representatives need to fit into a busy day
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Today's physicians have daunting schedules, filled with 15-minute appointments, double bookings, holds for patient emergencies,
pharmacy callbacks, patient callbacks, charting and other administrative duties. You may believe that you compete with other
representatives for a physician's time. In fact, you compete against the physician's busy schedule (see Figure 2).
Physicians are forced to look hard at how they use their time, and where they invest it. Most physicians strive to spend more
time with their patients, deliver high-quality care and get home to their families at a reasonable hour. Within this framework,
they may decide to shorten lunch breaks, streamline paperwork, and reduce or eliminate time spent with you and your pharmaceutical
industry colleagues.
The demands on a physician's time cause them to question the value of the role that representatives play in their practices
and, therefore, the access they allow. Your behavior can determine the degree to which physicians elect to manage, minimize
or eliminate that access.
