Now integrity is even more important to your pharmaceutical sales career
With pressure to provide fewer incentives to doctors and other providers, integrity has become even more important for people pursuing a career in pharmaceutical sales. If you're thinking about a career in pharmaceutical sales, you need to keep this in mind. Read and learn about the industry marketing guidelines released in 2002, as well as the Office of Inspector General’s guidelines released last year. MedZilla offers an update on these documents aimed at guiding sales and business practices in the industry and offers tips on how you can communicate your integrity during interviews.
Marysville, WA (PRWEB) March 5, 2004 -– If you’re pursuing a career in
pharmaceutical sales, and you are impeccably honest, you are ahead of the game.
“Integrity is more important in pharmaceutical sales than ever before,”
says Frank Heasley, PhD, President and CEO of MedZilla.com, a leading Internet
recruitment and professional community that targets job seekers and HR
professionals in biotechnology, pharmaceuticals, healthcare and science. “The
emphasis in pharmaceutical sales is shifting from one of winning physicians’
business based on perks and incentives to winning business based on honesty and
product knowledge.”
“Integrity is a fundamental key because all sales are
based on trust,” says one respondent on MedZilla’s forum. “Relationship building
is trust. If the doctor doesn’t trust you, he’s not going to write your product.
Also, if the company you are representing isn’t truthful, [it] will make all the
reps look bad.”
A paradigm shift in sales tactics
In the past, some
pharmaceutical sales reps and their employers may have offered physicians and
other provider’s large incentives to push pharma products, according to Michele
Groutage, MedZilla’s director of marketing. “But this has changed due to
pressure from consumers and the government. Even the Pharmaceutical Research and
Manufacturers of America (PhRMA), which represents research-based pharmaceutical
and biotechnology companies, released a new marketing code governing pharma
companies’ relationships with physicians and other healthcare professionals.”
According to the code, released in April 2002, “…meals (but no
entertainment/recreational events) may be offered so long as they: (a) are
modest as judged by local standards; and (b) occur in a venue and manner
conducive to informational communication and provide scientific or educational
value.” Including a healthcare professional’s spouse or other guests is
inappropriate. In addition, offering take-out meals, or meals to be eaten in the
absence of a company representative – such as “dine and dash” programs – is
inappropriate.
The code specifies that token consulting or advisory
arrangements should not be used to justify compensating healthcare professionals
for their time, travel, lodging and other out-of-pocket expenses. The code also
specifies that sales reps can offer items valued at $100 or less that primarily
benefit patients. “For example,” the code states, “an anatomical model for use
in an examination room primarily involves a patient benefit, whereas a VCR or CD
player does not.”
The new code also states that no grants, scholarships,
subsidies, support, consulting contracts, or educational or practice-related
items should be offered to a healthcare professional in exchange for prescribing
products or for a commitment to continue prescribing products. “Nothing should
be offered or provided in a manner or on conditions that would interfere with
the independence of a healthcare professional’s prescribing
practices.”
The government steps in
A year after the code was
developed; the Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Inspector
General (OIG) released its compliance program for pharmaceutical manufacturers.
According to Lesley Ann Skillen, a partner at Getnick and Getnick in Manhattan,
a general business integrity and antifraud practice, the government’s guidelines
pack even more punch than PhRMA’s.
Although these guidelines are not
laws, but rather, recommendations, the practical effect is that if a company
does not comply and is caught, there is a greater chance that the government
will view it as a violation of the anti-kickback act, she says. “I think that
pharmaceutical companies would be unwise not to comply with [the OIG
guidelines].”
Fortunately, now it’s harder than ever for companies to get
away with unethical sales practices because of the whistle-blower statute, which
allows private citizens who have knowledge of fraud to bring lawsuits in the
name of the federal government and to share in the proceeds.
Skillen
believes that pharma employers are educating their sales people about the
guidelines. “I think that sales and marketing reps are going to be held to
stricter standards and fundamentally will have to change their practices because
they have been so dependent upon getting physicians to cooperate by various
financial and other incentives,” she says.
One questionable practice
addressed head-on in the guidelines is “detailing,” according to Skillen. “A
sales rep goes into a doctor’s office and gives the doctor a pitch about why the
doctor should prescribe the drug. The doctor then fills out a form reporting on
that pitch and gets paid for it,” she says. “It’s very common. The OIG
guidelines say that the practice is suspect and potentially in violation of the
anti-kickback act because the doctor is potentially getting paid for a
referral.”
There have also been a series of multimillion-dollar
whistle-blower cases regarding the “marketing spread” to physicians. It was once
common for companies to sell drugs to doctor’s at large discounts. The doctors
would then bill Medicare for those drugs at the Medicare average wholesale
price. Pharma companies, according to Skillen, were competing to see which could
offer the doctors the lowest prices, resulting in the greatest profits to the
doctors. “Obviously that affected the clinical judgment of the doctors because
they were 'incentivised' to prescribe the drug that would give them the biggest
profit,” she says.
Sales reps that begin their career understanding the
importance of integrity might have a leg up on the competition, according to
Skillen. “The thing that you have to remember is that compliance is a relatively
new thing for the pharma industry. I went to a conference at the end of 2002 and
it was the first pharmaceutical industry compliance summit. It is somewhat
remarkable that it’s as novel as a concept for the pharmaceutical industry. So,
I think that a lot of the practices that have grown up in sales and marketing in
pharma are at odds with what the government is saying is potentially illegal and
unethical.”
Pharma sales reps of the future, Skillen says, need to
educate themselves about the OIG guidelines and make sure their employers
educate them on what they can and cannot do to win sales. “They need to keep
their companies honest and make sure their companies keep them honest,” she
says.
Let your honesty shine
Roz Usheroff, a coach and communications
specialist who works with pharmaceutical sales reps, has a client that developed
an acronym based on the key characteristics it looks for in an interview.
“PRSAMGH,” Usheroff says, stands for: proactivity, receptivity, stability,
ability, motivation, goal orientation and honesty.
Usheroff, author of
“Customize Your Career: How to Develop a Winning Strategy to Move Up,” says that
in today’s industry, sales reps need to honor integrity in their sales approach.
One reason is the rapid turnover in reps. Pharmaceutical sales reps usually last
three years before they are promoted, she says. “Doctors are less apt to trust
sales reps from the beginning. It’s more important for sales reps to create that
trusting relationship.”
Sales reps also need to build trusting
relationships to reflect well on their fellow team members. “It used to be that
there would be one sales rep for the doctor; now there might be six from one
company. So, you want to have integrity, because if you don’t, you are also
impacting your team that services that physician,” Usheroff says.
To
communicate your integrity to recruiters, be aware of body language --make sure
that you’re not giving mixed messages. Be open to conversation and make eye
contact, she says. Be honest in admitting your strengths, tactful in discussing
your weaknesses, and talk about what you are doing to improve. Focus on loyalty
and show that you are a team player, Usheroff says.
About
MedZilla.com
Established in mid 1994, MedZilla is the original web site
to serve career and hiring needs for professionals and employers in
biotechnology, pharmaceuticals, medicine, science and healthcare. MedZilla
databases contain about 10,000 open positions, 13,000 resumes from candidates
actively seeking new positions and 71,000 archived resumes.
Medzilla® is
a Registered Trademark owned by Medzilla Inc. Copyright ©2004, MedZilla, Inc.
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if electronically, with a link to the URL www.medzilla.com. For
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Source : http://www.prweb.com/releases/2004/3/prweb108996.htm