I have been lurking on this board for some time, but haven?t really seen any discussions on sales representatives. It is to the point at our solo FP office that the front desk and MAs argue about who has to greet the reps when they come up to the reception window. We have a minimum of 6-7 representatives from drug companies, home health agencies, radiology centers, medical equipment vendors, and even reps from a large orthopedics practice walk through our front door EVERY DAY. We have accepted drug reps for the past 23 years, as we have grown from a 3 exam room, 2 staff limited-hours office to a 7 room, 8 staff full-time practice. In the last 4 years we have not had a single lunch with any drug or sales rep as we used to. I still speak with reps for 5-10 minutes at a time, but otherwise I instruct the employees to tell them we are too busy and that we are OK on samples. We also do not accept any gifts, whether food or little trinkets for the office staff. Some of the following practices irk me:

? The drug reps often state they need to see me sign their laptops for the samples and then try to rope you into a 10 minute sales pitch.

? They try to double team you ? they will either come with their supervisor, trainee, or sometimes 2-3 will come together from a single drug company pitching different products.

? They waste the time of the reception staff with pleasantries and personal questions as they try to butter them up. This is true of all the reps ? the drugs reps want to leave samples/speak with me, and all the other reps want our business or referrals.

? The worst is when 2 reps from competing companies come at the same time. They end up trying to one-up each other in terms of how close they are with us.

? When we remodeled and greatly enlarged our staff kitchen, multiple reps asked when they were going to have their lunch meeting, as if we renovated for THEM!

The reps are not evil, and we know they are just doing their job, but they are causing frustration and explicit opportunity cost. The office manager has been insisting for some time that we stop accepting ALL representatives. Her opinion is that the time our office spends with them is better spent on patient care. She states the benefit of the drug samples we receive for needy patients is heavily outweighed by the following:

- Almost all of the branded drugs require Prior Authorization from the insurance companies and almost all of them have a covered generic substitute.

-Even when we do have success with a needy or even affluent patient with a branded drug, when it comes time to pay the pharmacy, they request a more affordable alternative and we end up changing them to a generic. Some examples off the top of my head are Micardis or Edarbi vs Losartan and Crestor vs Simvastatin, Pravastatin, or Atorvastatin.

-A great deal of research time is required to properly evaluate the drug studies and assess the amount of biased information ? something very few of us even have time to do.

How does your office handle drug and other sales representatives? Do you have a sign stating no drug reps or solicitors allowed? Do you only allow them at certain times, on certain days, or by appointment only? If you have such a policy, how did you implement it? How did you explain the new policy to the reps?