Meritcare

Effective Immediately

Meritcare Internal Medicine Desk 35, southpointe Internal Medicine, Moorhead Internal Medicine and the residents clinic desk 58 will no longer be taking samples.

Rep Contact info.

There is a change to the "Become a Member" link on the RRMRA web site.Please forward all new and or updated Representative info. to jennifer.renner@pfizer.com, or snail mail, 3221 23rd Ave. S., Fargo, ND 58103. If you have any questions please feel free to call Jenn at 701-261-7113.

Meritcare Meeting

Overall the meeting with Meritcare went very well. We would like to touch on a few highlights as well as a couple of items they are concerned with.
1. They were very interested in working with us on how to manage their voucher program. We mentioned that some of the companies had already come up with systems that may reduce manpower and time on their part.
2. The idea of expanding the catering options was also met favorably as long as it does not invlove time in which physicians are suppose to be seeing patients. They encourage us to provide feedback on the quality of the food and ways in which they can improve.
3. The idea of working with Meritcare and the education department interested them when we explained the benefits of working with the whole 2008 schedule to maximize dollars and let the reps know ahead of time what events will be schedule as well as setting up the right dollar amounts to maximize attendance.
4. No plans at this time to go to a REPTRAX system.
5. We discussed the long term benefits of a new relationship versus Duluth or some of the Twin Cities options. They stated they are following something called the Stanford model which tends to reduce or eliminate us but the ideas we presented generally would shy away from that and with that the list of concerns we need to be aware of.
1. NUMBER 1 CONCERN and IMMEDIATE dismissal from Meritcare. Even though it is not illegal for us to provide physicians with personal samples it is against their policy and will be met with immediate and dire consequences for the rep and the physician.
2. Catering- Their is no sidestepping the catering policy regardless of the physician prompting us to do so.
3. Vochers- Representatives stating that the leaving of vouchers needs a "witnessed signature" are heading for trouble.
4. The remaining few items fell under the category of reps doing "stupid stuff" for which we shrugged and said take care of it on an individual basis.

Overall very positive with them wanting another meeting to follow up on many of these ideas.

Here is what we need to do. Be mindful of Meritcare policies and realize the times have changed and our long term viability with them relies on us finding new ways to work together. Please refrain from making offhand remarks about the catering or policies while in the institution as many are overheard by the wrong people and hurt us in our attmept to improve our position. We are in a good postion to move ahead but a bad event by someone not looking out for the long term and that could be it for all of us. More to follow

Tony Cain - Steve Larson - Kim Williams - John Kersman - Roger Everson - Jennifer Renner

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