Pharmaceutical Marketing - To Health Care Providers

To Health Care Providers

Marketing to health care providers takes four main forms: gifting, detailing, drug samples, and sponsoring continuing medical education (CME). Of the 237,000 medical sites representing 680,000 physicians surveyed in SK&A's 2010 Physician Access survey, half said they prefer or require an appointment to see a rep (up from 38.5% preferring or requiring an appointment in 2008), while 23% won't see reps at all, according to the survey data. Practices owned by hospitals or health systems are tougher to get into than private practices, since appointments have to go through headquarters, the survey found. 13.3% of offices with just one or two doctors won't see reps, compared with a no-see rate of 42% at offices with 10 or more docs The most accessible physicians for promotional purposes are allergists/immunologists – only 4.2% won't see reps at all – followed by orthopedic specialists (5.1%) and diabetes specialists (7.6%). Diagnostic radiologists are the most rigid about allowing details – 92.1% won't see reps – followed by pathologists and neuroradiologists, at 92.1% and 91.8%, respectively.

Edetailing is widely used to reach "no see physicians"; approximately 23% of primary care physicians and 28% of specialists prefer computer-based edetailing, according to survey findings reported in the April 25, 2011, edition of American Medical News (AMNews), published by the American Medical Association (AMA).