HOSPITALS HIRING SALES REPS TO WOO DOCS AND BUMP PROFITS–JUST LIKE BIG PHARMA

The Kaiser Health News is reporting that hospitals are now adopting strategies used by the pharmaceutical industry in selling their drugs, including hiring individuals to make sales calls on physicians in the hope that they will refer more patients to the hospital. The University of Chicago Medical Center is one of a growing number of hospitals hiring former drug and device sales reps to visit doctors offices in order to persuade them to use their services. Instead of leaving samples of prescription drugs, the sales reps reveals the newest information about the hospitals and how they are reducing hospital acquired infections and improving patient satisfaction scores. In some cases, the representatives can help the physicians obtain better times in operating rooms and also carry back messages to the hospital such as a request for a new medical device to be available in surgery. Tenet Healthcare Corporation the nation’s third largest for profit chain has soubled its sales force in the last two years. It now has 152 physician liasons most in California Texas and Florida.