Affordability vs. Value

I’ve been enjoying Twitter for a while now (@DinoDocLucy for any wannabe followers). It’s providing me with links to all kinds of fascinating things I never would have found otherwise. It’s also really cool how often I come across things that have nothing to do with medicine but everything to do with my practice. “Six Mistakes Your Sales Reps are Making” I thought the title looked interesting, so I clicked through. It turned out that the reps in question were calling on libraries, as the  post was on a blog about scholarly publishing. Still, several points (sort of) applied to pharma and other reps who come a-calling on me. Then came point #5: Responding to Affordability Statements with Value Arguments …For the last several years I have been fielding pitches from a particuarly aggressive sales rep who very much wants to sell my library a backfile database at a price of roughly $150,000. When we tell him that we don’t have $150,000 available for such a purchase, the response is always a long explanation of how important and valuable the database is. We couldn’t agree more. But the value proposition doesn’t make $150,000 magically appear in our budget. …Takeaway point: Value and affordability have nothing to do with each other, and price trumps value every time. Hello! That’s what I’ve been saying about electronic medical records all along. All the “value” they add is completely irrelevant when I can̵...
Source: Musings of a Dinosaur - Category: Primary Care Authors: Tags: Medical Source Type: blogs