Focus - Summer 2012 - 35

SELLINGSKILLS

Don’t Overlook NPs/PAs in Sales Training
I By Michelle Nolin Flewell re nurse practitioners (NPs) and physician assistants (PAs) speci cally addressed in your sales training? If not, you might want to rethink your strategy. e days of focusing solely on physicians as the only, or even primary, prescribers of medical products are over — no matter which therapeutic category your products fall into.

are also important providers of healthcare in the U.S. Like NPs, PAs also practice across multiple therapeutic categories, and all 50 states allow PAs to prescribe medication. eir numbers are expected to more than double within the next decade: the American Academy of Physician Assistants (AAPA) projects 137,000-173,000 certi ed PAs by the year 2020.

Physician Extenders: An Anachronism? Yes.
NPs are licensed professionals who diagnose, order tests, and prescribe medical products and devices in all 50 states, with either some or no physician oversight required (this varies by state). eir numbers have increased in recent years, soaring to more than 180,000 in 2011 ( e Pearson Report), with nearly 9,000 new NPs joining the ranks every year. ere are now 600 million patient visits to NPs annually. While there may be fewer PAs — close to 80,000 in the U.S. in 2011, according to e Pearson Report—they

Training Your Sales Professionals to Call on NPs and PAs
With the numbers of NPs and PAs set to grow, and the number of prescriptions written and diagnostic tests ordered by NPs and PAs set to grow along with them, training your sales professionals how to call on these professionals should be at the top of your list. But don’t make the mistake in thinking that you can just roll NPs and PAs to your current training curriculums that focus on calling on physicians. While there are similarities in their roles, the patient care approach taken by NPs and PAs is unique, making the approach your sales professionals need to take with them unique as well. e AANP and AAPA both strongly stress the holistic approach that NPs and PAs take to patient management: “PAs are creative, compassionate practitioners who strive to treat the ‘whole person.’” Training sales representatives to call on NPs and PAs requires that you teach

your sales professionals how to ask different kinds of questions and provide di erent kinds of answers: ones that focus on providing NPs and PAs with the information they need to care for “whole” people within their speci c patient populations. is may mean asking questions regarding prevention and disease management. It may mean asking questions about patient counseling and education. It may mean asking questions about providing care to a rural, underinsured population. e key is to teach your people to ask the right kinds of questions. If they know how to ask the right kinds of questions, they will be able to get the answers they need to o er useful information and appropriate solutions. I

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Michelle Nolin Flewell, CPLP, is senior director, strategy and solutions, with Informa Training Partners. Email Michelle at m ewell@informatp.com.

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Focus - Summer 2012

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