Many life sciences companies could be missing a key opportunity by not proactively leveraging their aggregated spend data and the publicly available CMS Open Payments data. Examining all available data is essential to help gain competitive intelligence and further inform strategic business decisions.
The organizations currently mining this valuable data are usually large companies that have had to comply with the Physician Payments Sunshine Act for years; while the organizations that are not actively evaluating all of the data are typically small and emerging companies, or they are companies who simply view Sunshine Act reporting as only a “necessary compliance task” that is required to be performed and offers little to no commercial value.
Our goal is to shed light on the not-so-hidden value found within the spend data associated with healthcare provider/organization (HCP/O) interactions that life sciences companies are required to aggregate in order to meet their global transparency reporting obligations.
Highlighted below are some of the questions that can be answered by utilizing the data:
- Who are the HCP/Os that our competition spends most of their time promoting to and how much is our competition spending on the relationship?
- What are the total number of payments generated by type and purpose for each drug or device? And how do we compare against our competition?
- What is the distribution of payments by type for each sales representative, sales district, region, and company? And which HCP/Os are they spending the money on?
- Are we spending too much time with certain HCP/Os?
- What is the appropriate budget we should allocate for sales when it comes to meals? Are we throwing money away?
- Which HCPs (Doctor of Medicine (MDs), Doctor of Osteopathic Medicine (DOs), Nurse Practitioners (NPs), Physician Assistants (PAs)) are “no-see” or are trending in that direction?
- What are the weekly, monthly and quarterly trends of payment activities by HCP/Os?
- What other HCPs (MDs, DOs, NPs, PAs, etc.) can we add to our call plan that our competition isn’t targeting?
- Which NPs and PAs are our competition spending the most time with, and what are those trends?
The possibilities from harnessing the value of all aggregated ToV reporting data are endless. The data provides answers to many other questions and allows your organization to easily capture competitive intelligence.
Under the current global legislation, a ToV constitutes any direct or indirect payment provided by a manufacturer to an HCP/O. Transfers must be categorized based on the nature and purpose of the payment as described below.
|
Transfers of Value |
Examples |
| Consulting Fees | Direct payments for advisory services such as market research or advisory board participation. |
| Travel and Lodging | Reimbursement for travel and/or lodging from company sponsored activity or third-party conference. |
| Meals (Food and Beverage) | Provision of food and beverage such as an office lunch provided by a field representative. |
| Speaking Events | Direct payments for serving as faculty or speaker. This includes drug or device presentations or hospital grand rounds. |
| Education | Support for materials, programs and training such as article reprints, textbooks and medical education. |
| Royalty or License | Payments based on sales of products that use a physician’s intellectual property. |
| Grants | A payment to a physician or teaching hospital to support a specific cause or activity. |
| Long Term Medical Supply or Device Loan | The loan of supplies or a device for 91 days or longer. |
| Honoraria | Similar to consulting fees, but generally reserved for a brief, one-time activity. Another distinction is that honoraria are generally provided for services without a set price. |
| Research | Payments for different types of research activities, including the time a physician spends enrolling patients in studies for new drugs or devices. Research payments can include direct compensation to physicians, funding for research study coordination and implementation, or payments to study participants to cover expenses associated with the study. |
Analyzing the data from different interaction channels such as expense management (e.g., Concur and Expensify), accounts payable (e.g., SAP and Oracle) and CRM systems (e.g., Veeva and Salesforce), allows any life sciences company to easily unlock actionable insights which inform future business decisions and aid in meeting and improving performance benchmarks. These insights don’t just facilitate compliance; they facilitate more informed strategic decision making.
For example, did you know that in 2020 nearly $2 billion was spent across nearly 5.8 million transactions? Or that the below physicians had the highest general spend amounts and transactions associated with them?
Now is the time to take advantage of value found within this data and learn more about how you can turn nearly 6 million annual transactions into insights which enable you to make better informed business decisions. To learn more about how you can turn your data into additional value, contact MediSpend or email me directly at shouston@medispend.com.
Seth Houston
Chief Commercial Officer
February 16, 2022