Your Healthcare Call Point NEEDS You – Now More Than Ever

2 min reading time

Guest Post from Sam O’Rear, Senior Partner, TIGI

If you are in medical diagnostic sales, it is important to move a level above your traditional call points.

Your traditional call point is not going to be aware of all the implications coming from healthcare reform. You need to go up one or two levels. Then you get to talk with people who deal with this daily.

It’s also important you don’t threaten your typical call point, where they feel they are losing control of the situation.

We never want them to feel like they are losing control. But I think we do have to challenge them.

We have to say, “Here is what’s happening. As you know with reform, the Accountable Care Organizations (ACOs) are going to be a big part of the future. What are the current plans for this organization to be a part of an ACO?”

They are going to typically say, “I don’t know. I’ve heard about an ACO. I’m not even sure I know what that is.”

“Would you be interested in learning more about it? I’ll be glad just, you know, do a quick couple of minutes over here with you if you’d like.”

Then you say along the lines of,

• When they do the stack ranking based on your core measures or quality measures is there any prediction of where you guys are going to end up in that stack ranking?
• Has there been a predictive process? Have people done a review on that? How long?
• Your Women’s Health and your other centers of excellence, do you hear any of them talk about it when you have staff meetings?

They’ll probably reply, “I don’t go to their staff meetings. They rarely come to my staff meetings.”

“If there is a way you and I can talk to them … just kind of get an idea … because this is going to start really bearing down on you and me. I’m concerned about it, I know you will be and I know that is going to be an increasing expectation. You are going to have of me to be able to address that and prepare you for some of those discussions in relation at least to patient monitoring.”

This is a way you become invaluable to your call point. They are not threatened by you.

Instead, they are so grateful for you. You are helping them forward their agenda and they will come to rely on your knowledge of the changing landscape.

Then you can really affect change for your selling organization.

Also from TIGI: Economic Turmoil’s Impact on National Healthcare Reform

About the Author
At Total Innovation Group, Senior Partner Sam O’Rear provides sales training and specializes in talent development, adaptive selling techniques, business development, and sales force buy-in. Medical sales teams deeply appreciate TIGI for teaching them something about the healthcare reform landscape in a way they can use on their calls to build trust and close more business. TIGI clients include Philips, Roche, Toshiba, VHA, and Johnson & Johnson. Contact TIGI to see if there is a fit for you.