Conference wrapup from Coeur d’Alene
New insurance program for IMDA members. IMDA members have an opportunity to obtain medical product and professional liability insurance at reduced costs through a group buying arrangement with Alliant Insurance Services and Medmarc. Details were announced at the recent Annual Conference. Vidacare wins first Manufacturers Partnership Award. San Antonio manufacturer is recognized for its commitment to specialty sales and marketing.
Move to the ‘A’ list. Actively promote your value
and move to
Walker is new president; Trout is president-elect.
As it does every year, the Annual Conference brought
changes to the
COEUR D’ALENE, IDAHO--IMDA members have an opportunity to obtain medical product and professional liability insurance at reduced costs through a group buying arrangement with Alliant Insurance Services and Medmarc. The relationship was introduced at the 2007 Annual Conference, and interested members were asked to complete and send in a one-page underwriting form to IMDA headquarters as soon as possible. By combining their sales volume, IMDA members can expect to save as much as 20 percent to 40 percent on their premiums, depending on how many members participate, said Matt Cohn, first vice president for Phoenix, Ariz.-based Alliant, which would serve as the broker. In order to participate, companies would have to be members of IMDA. For that reason, the plan would serve not only as a member benefit, but as a valuable recruiting tool as well. The proposal on the table would provide individual members with coverage up to $10 million per occurrence. That is the same maximum coverage that would be provided to the group as a whole on an annual basis, said Cohn. The agreement would be IMDA’s first group-buying relationship for insurance since the association cut its ties with Mission, Kan.-based brokerage firm Schifman, Remley & Associates several years ago. IMDA formed a relationship with Medmarc in 2004, but it was not a group buying relationship, nor did companies need to be IMDA members in order to participate. Based in Chantilly, Va., Medmarc was founded in 1979 by a group of medical device manufacturers. Today, the company continues to focus on product liability insurance and risk management for the medical technology industry. Members interested in participating in the insurance program should contact IMDA headquarters at (866) IMDA-YES (866-463-2937) to receive a copy of the one-page underwriting form. Cohn said he would review IMDA members’ current policies and compare them to the proposed IMDA policy. Members can e-mail him at mcohn@alliantinsurance.com.
COEUR D’ALENE, IDAHO—Vidacare, the San Antonio, Texas-based manufacturer of the EZ-IO® intraosseous drug-delivery device, received IMDA’s first-ever Manufacturers Partnership Award.
The Manufacturers Partnership Award recognizes a manufacturer that:
Vidacare Executive Vice President and co-founder Jim Thomsen – who accepted the award – has extensive experience with specialty distributors, having founded two specialty-distributor organizations in the past. Speaking at a panel discussion on successful relationships between manufacturers and specialty sales and marketing organizations, Thomsen reiterated his belief that Vidacare and its outsourced sales companies are a team. “I need you, and you need my products,” he said. Using specialty sales and marketing organizations, Vidacare achieved Year 1 sales in excess of $1.25 million. In its second year (2006), sales jumped to almost $6 million. Current-year forecasts call for $15 million in sales.
“Some manufacturers don’t understand what specialty distributors do, and that leads to unfair expectations from the get-go,” he said. For example, they might not understand the investment that distributors must make in order to do the “missionary” work required for new technologies. When it launched EZ-IO, Vidacare offered its initial distributors the opportunity to invest in the company. In addition, Vidacare created a dealer advisory council, which convenes quarterly to discuss the business and how to continue to move the product forward. “I try to get them involved before I make decisions,” said Thomsen. “They see things in the field before I do. And their role is to tell me where my bad is, when I’m not doing something right.” Thomsen also compiles a monthly ranking, showing where each of Vidacare’s dealers stand in terms of sales, sales increase, quotas, etc. “Everybody loves it and hates it at the same time,” he says. “But everybody knows where everybody stands.” IMDA Conference Chairman Tom Birmingham, who was the driving force behind the Manufacturers Partnership Award, expects the award – which will be presented annually – to cement ties between IMDA and its manufacturer partners. He urged IMDA members to begin thinking now about manufacturers they will nominate for the award next spring.
Maybe you know this already. Maybe you’ve sensed it. But in the eyes of big multihospital systems, or IDNs, there are two types of suppliers in the world. There are the A players and there are the B players. The A players are the big guys – the Cardinals, the Owens & Minors, the Tycos, the Johnson & Johnsons. These are the guys that IDNs are tight with, and with whom their GPOs typically contract. Their clinicians tend to accept their products without question… Then there’s everyone else. Chances are, as a specialty sales and marketing organization, you’re probably on most IDNs’ B list, which is reserved for the smaller players, who typically are not on GPO contract, and whose value many IDN executives simply don’t understand. Your reps might be getting a steady dose of “No GPO contract? We don’t want you here.” You and your reps might feel frustrated when the IDN materials executive informs you of a new credentialing process that all sales reps must submit to. Your reps might be saying to themselves, “What’s the use? I want to call on people who value what I bring to the table.” And you may ask yourself in frustration, “Don’t these providers want to see technologies that can improve patient outcomes and reduce costs?” Well, they do, but they don’t know that you’re the one who can bring those technologies to them. Lotsa luck Dave Campbell and his reps at Vital/Med Systems Corp. had heard it all before. In some cases, they had all but conceded some big accounts in their territory -- the Rocky Mountains states. There simply was no getting in. Then, at the insistence of his spouse and business partner Kathy French, Campbell decided to try a different approach. “She said, ‘You need to have conversations with people at the highest levels,’” he recalled. His feeling was, “Been there, done that. Lots of luck.” But she made the calls and, soon after, the senior product decision-maker for the local HCA system agreed to stop by Vital/Med’s office for a half hour on her way to work. Campbell took the cue, and prepared a brochure on Vital/Med Systems as well as a PowerPoint presentation on its role as the source for innovative healthcare technologies. “After the better part of an hour, as she was leaving, she was talking about partnering,” said Campbell. Just a couple of weeks later, he was making his presentation before senior executives of HCA’s Continental Division. “We presented what we do and why we’re important,” he said. He pointed out that in its 25-year history, Vital/Med Systems had introduced technologies that, while the standard of care today, were unheard of when they were introduced -- names they would recognize, such as Ballard, and the company that later would become known as Guidant. It was during that meeting that Campbell learned of the A list and the B list. A revelation of sorts came to him, namely, that big IDNs don’t have time to recognize everybody, so they focus their attention on the A-list members. Given that, what’s a B-lister to do? Campbell decided that rather than fight the existence of the A and B lists, or even the fact that Vital/Med Systems was on the latter, he would, quite simply, move his company to the A list. He devised the following strategy, which he believes will work for other B-listers as well;
Campbell shared additional tips:
Although Campbell’s strategy was an “executive-to-executive play” at the IDN corporate level, the fact is, Vital/Med Systems’ reps still have to sell their own value – and that of their company -- at the individual hospital level. The company’s reps have brochures of their own to help them do that. “[IDNs] aren’t stupid,” said Campbell. “They want to run profitable operations. But they think they can only do that with the A list.” So become part of the A list.
As it does every year, the Annual Conference brought with it changes in the IMDA board:
For the second time in its history, IMDA has
appointed a chairman of the
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