Optimum Sales – The new regulation of the medical visit
In the Official Gazette of the Basque Country, number 40, dated February 27, 2020, the regulations governing medical visits in the Basque healthcare system have been published. This regulation updates state provisions from 1994 and European ones from 2001.
In different posts that I published last week, I highlighted the various aspects that I found very interesting, both for their innovative nature and for being restrictive in this regulation.
One of the aspects that I find most novel is the explicit acceptance of medical visits through digital channels.
Art.3 point 1.
“It will also be understood as a medical visit, similarly, the one carried out through all those forms of electronic communication that the pharmaceutical industry uses to provide information about their products to healthcare professionals with the aim of positively influencing prescription decision-making. The concept includes remote online informational and interactive campaigns that offer a brand experience for healthcare professionals.”
In contrast, one of the most restrictive articles I find in this regulation is Article 5, point 2, where it determines the number of laboratories a healthcare professional can receive per day, which is a maximum of 4, and the total maximum time they can attend them, which is 15 minutes per day, the maximum time for each visit, which is between 3-5 minutes, and additionally, each laboratory can only make 4 visits per year per service in total, including the promotion of all divisions each company has.
“Up to four pharmaceutical laboratories can be received daily at most.” The visits will be conducted consecutively within the established time period. c) Each pharmaceutical laboratory may have a maximum of five minutes for each visit. The maximum daily time dedicated by the healthcare professional to medical visits shall not exceed fifteen minutes”.
“Each pharmaceutical laboratory may not exceed four annual visits per service.” Four is the maximum number of annual visits per pharmaceutical laboratory, regardless of their divisions or clinical lines, except with exceptional and express authorization from the governing bodies of the Osakidetza-Health Service of the Basque Country or the affiliated center.”
Therefore, if the Osakidetza management does not give explicit authorization, the maximum time allowed for a laboratory per service is 20 minutes per year, divided into 4 visits to meet their sales targets. Perhaps for high-turnover consumables or for molecules with a high level of introduction it might be sufficient, but for medical devices, equipment, and new molecules, it seems to me to be too high a limitation for the representative to do their job of providing information well and for the healthcare professional to be properly informed.
This regulation poses a threat to Osakidetza, which is that if it is enforced rigorously, many laboratories will give up on investing in having a team of representatives to promote their products. Does 20 minutes a year justify having a representative in a territory?
Does Osakidetza prefer the misinformation of healthcare professionals and the lack of access to possible updates over lifting the restrictions on medical visits?
This regulatory restriction opens up a great opportunity for laboratories to promote their products through digital channels. Establish ON-OFF line combined medical view strategies.
Shifting part of the medical visit to a digital environment, which has its regulatory framework reflected in the same law, authorizes visits without limitation in each cycle for each salesperson, and by therapeutic division. Therefore, they are inviting us to implement a digital transformation process for the sales networks, so that they can effectively and profitably address their client portfolio through digital channels.
Laboratories must start to naturally integrate actions such as Growth Haking campaigns for generating demand for information and training from healthcare professionals into their sales strategy, and also, as an essential element, the implementation of social-health (corporate social selling) sales processes for all delegates, so they know how to sell effectively in both channels, ON-OFF line.
In short, this new regulation is inviting all laboratories, or at least those operating in Euskadi, to undertake a true and rapid digital transformation of their commercial processes.
| David Galve | General Director www.linkedin.com/in/davidgalve |  |
