Manufacturers Becoming Our Direct Competitors Comments Part 5

Manufacturers Becoming Our Direct Competitors Comments Part 5

Jon Hess

4/22/2014

Part 5

 

 

 

Hi Jon,

Thank you so much for sharing your thoughts on the list regarding
Manufacturers Becoming Our Direct Competitors:

I am glad you decided to mention this because I have a private practice and
have experienced similar tactics. For example: My company asked a
manufacturer to come in and do a course for Therapist for us in hopes that
the therapist would get a better understanding of these types of products
for their patients and also get some CEU's as well. Well as it turns out,
the person the manufacturer brought in was a CPO from a competitor which we
had no idea and certainly was a conflict of interest. There was a total of
36 therapists and we were told up front that the speaker would refer the
therapist to our office for referrals in our neck of the woods but that
never happened. The speaker behind our backs, gave out their business cards
which was our competition, knowing that the therapist would reach out to the
manufacture first before any O&P. Out of the 36 therapist, we currently only
get referrals from 4 if that and was to,told by others they now use the
person who spoke at the course OUR COURSE WE PUT ON (our competition) thanks
a bunch! When we confronted the manufacturer they denied knowing the speaker
was our competition, 45 minutes away, never marketed our area because we are
in the boonies but since we are the only ones in the entire county we got
all the work, now all of a sudden our competition sends people in our area
to market our docs and referrals, so you didn't know they were our
Competition, REALLY! How about thanks!

Not sure if you have heard of O&P Social, it is a social network myself and
other O&P Professionals created. O&P Social is a place where one can connect
and share in a network of similar people, share ideas, educate and
understand each role in the process, then learn from each other's
experiences and successes. With the rising cost of healthcare and an
increasing patient population and the shrinking dollars available to provide
services, it seems logical if not necessary to create and coordinate our
efforts. That's what O&P Social is all about, and that's what we want to do,
and we believe that's what the industry needs. The Orthotic and Prosthetic
industry as we know is multi-faceted. The business is made up of many
different healthcare providers and organizations directly involved in
patient management. These include physicians, nurses, discharge
coordinators, O&P practitioners, therapists, home care provider's hospitals,
and rehab centers. In addition to this you have Insurance providers,
hospital administrators, government regulators and resource coordinators
trying to monitor the process so that these services are provided in a cost
efficient and timely manner. Within each of these specialties you have
educators, manufacturers, advocacy groups and let's not forget the patient.
They all have needs, and they all need to work together.

This would be a great topic to broadcast to our 1,800 plus members and get
their thoughts on this and see how many others are going through this. Let
me know if you would like for us to send this to our members on
< <URL Redacted>> www.oandpsocial.com.




 

 

 

 

Shall we talk about Donjoy? DAFO? Both of these companies market and sell
directly to PTs. Bledsoe hires their own orthotists now but I still like
them. Ossur owns 70% of at least one, 12 office O&P practice I'm aware of.
Surestep is an O&P practice with its own territory. However, when they make
a presentation to PTs, there are local orthotists in the room and Surestep
only sells to orthotists. I simply don't do business with companies who take
a similar stance as you describe. I found a better alternative to the
leather gauntlet style AFO, called 2nd Ankle from Freedom. I would forward
the marketing material back to OHI along with a letter that you would like
to cancel your accounts with all of their subsidiaries. In the end, it's
business. And business is about growing and increasing profit.

 

 

 

Jon,

 

I read your list serve message with great interest and hear your
frustration. I have been in the O&P industry as a practicing clinician for
over twenty years and this unfortunately is not new. Manufactures have been
working with other Allied Health Care professionals for years. We all saw
what happened with Don Joy, with their reps going direct to the physicians
groups. KO's used to be our gravy work and now we only get those very
difficult KO patients that their reps cannot fit.

 

DAFO did something very similar by going direct to the PT's by training them
to cast and fit pediatric orthoses.

 

I used to service a large trauma hospital where I was delivering 20-25
custom TLSO's a month. ASPEN went in and before I knew it their materials
management was stocking ASPEN OTS TLSO's. I lost my custom TLSO work
overnight; and let's not get started with the stock and bills

 

At any rate I am now working on the manufactures side, which I have been
doing for several years. I travel and teach throughout the country on our
new products and how O&P's can enhance and grow their businesses. I will
tell you I am often appalled by the callous behavior of some of our fellow
clinicians. I have been told by many clinicians that they do not have time
for nor do they want to see manufacture reps. Our reps are often in their
city only a few times a year as they cover a vast amount of territory. It is
disheartening to when they call for an appointment, at the clinician's
convenience, and are told the clinicians are not interested in seeing new
products and will not see manufacture reps.

 

Manufactures spend a fortune developing new products and improving existing
products. If you look at Spine Core for instance, they tried to work with
O&P's for years and the industry would not accept this product. So much was
spent in the development that Spine Core now works with Chiropractors. I
still hear clinicians in O&P complain about this; however what was the
manufacture to do. They tried to work with O&P first.

 

I am not condoning what OHI is doing, however there are two sides to every
story. Manufactures need to pay the bills and our reps earn their living by
sales. I am finding too often that clinicians are not supporting our
manufactures hence manufactures may be looking for other means to make a
living.

 

 

We refuse to use Arizonia AFO any longer we use Othroamerica and they are
great and turn around time is very quick and we do not have to adjust braces
as much as we did with Arizonia.

 

 


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