Pharmaceutical Industry

Prescriptions Written by Nurse Practitioners/Physician Assistants Up Significantly

YARDLEY, PA - Nurse practitioners and physician assistants wrote 22% more retail prescriptions for the first eight months of 2006 than during the same period a year ago, according to a report published by healthcare informatics firm Verispan. In contrast, retail prescriptions written by physicians during the same period increased only 2%.

New patient transactions for nurse practitioners and physician assistants rose 14%, while switch-add patient transactions for these patients, or transactions capturing prescribers either changing to a different medication or adding a drug to their current therapy, in the same market, increased 22%. Their physician counterparts however saw a decrease of 2% for new patient transactions during the same period.

The rise in the number of prescriptions written by nurse practitioners and physician assistants may be a direct result of the increase in number of visits by pharmaceutical sales representatives.

Detailing by representatives to nurse practitioners and physician assistants increased 9% in the twelve months ending July 2006 compared to the same time period the previous year. At the same time, detailing to office- and hospital-based physicians decreased 6% and 16%, respectively.

The majority of physician assistants (86%) see at least one sales representative per week, with an average of 6.8 reps seen, according to Verispan’s Pharmaceutical Image study. These numbers are only slightly lower for nurse practitioners.

The study also showed a correlation between the number of patients seen and the number of sales reps seen. Nurse practitioners who saw more patients were substantially more likely to see a greater number of sales representatives. For instance, 59% of respondents who treated 100 or more patients per also saw four or more sales reps in that time period. At the same time, thirty percent of the nurse practitioners who treated fifty or fewer patients per week saw four or more reps a week.