Is this normal practice?

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anonymous

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Newish rep here, about a 7 months in. Still learning the ways of the sales world. There is an account I go to that stocks speedbridge kits. For any type of RCR repair, it gets open. If they need a speedfix, the SB kit gets opened and 1 anchor is implanted. If they want 1 medial and 1 lateral, kit is again opened….always felt weird about this. Patient getting charged for a whole kit but not all anchors are getting used. Anybody else experienced something like this?
 



Yes this is normal. It happens all over the country, all the time. I had a few accounts who would do the same thing. One would blatantly save the unused anchors/suture in a bin marked “Free Anchors for Medicare cases”.

The surgery center doesn’t get paid for anchors in Medicare cases. This physician-owned center would charge a commercial insurance for the entire kit in one case so the center gets paid and then turns around and uses paid for anchors on the lower reimbursed case.

It is called Medicare fraud but the government doesn’t seem to care and the lead rep told me to no say anything about it. One of my competitors called it out to the center’s administrator and he got banned from the facility for 30 days. These doctors are just trying to make their $750k per year and need all the help they can get.

Welcome to the life bro. Keep your eyes open and your mouth shut.
 



A Netflix documentary could be done about some of the things that go on here.

Here is another one, a rep used to bill for an ACL screw driver for each ACL reconstruction case. Got to do anything to hit that number, or no bonus.
 



anonymous said:
Yes this is normal. It happens all over the country, all the time. I had a few accounts who would do the same thing. One would blatantly save the unused anchors/suture in a bin marked “Free Anchors for Medicare cases”.

The surgery center doesn’t get paid for anchors in Medicare cases. This physician-owned center would charge a commercial insurance for the entire kit in one case so the center gets paid and then turns around and uses paid for anchors on the lower reimbursed case.

It is called Medicare fraud but the government doesn’t seem to care and the lead rep told me to no say anything about it. One of my competitors called it out to the center’s administrator and he got banned from the facility for 30 days. These doctors are just trying to make their $750k per year and need all the help they can get.

Welcome to the life bro. Keep your eyes open and your mouth shut.
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Thanks for the reply. I’ve also seen in some instances senior reps open an acl backup kit for a speedfix to bump up the case cost…couple hundred $ increase to bill as opposed to opening just a single anchor. Is this another one of those “keep your eyes open and mouth shut” situations? Just seems kinda sketch to me but I guess that’s sales for ya
 



anonymous said:
Thanks for the reply. I’ve also seen in some instances senior reps open an acl backup kit for a speedfix to bump up the case cost…couple hundred $ increase to bill as opposed to opening just a single anchor. Is this another one of those “keep your eyes open and mouth shut” situations? Just seems kinda sketch to me but I guess that’s sales for ya
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I haven’t seen that one but I don’t doubt it. It will get worse now that we are really only paid on growth. I talked to a surgeon who doesn’t really care what company that he uses and he thinks it is a matter of time before all the companies are brought down by a state or federal DA who wants to make a name for himself. I just try to stay below the radar because I don’t want to go to jail just to make $150k
 



This is not normal practice, there is something called ethics and compliance in all organizations. Does Arthrex want its reps ripping open unnecessary equipment just to increase the PO? No because then in turn they are paying out bonuses for sales quotas that were hit based sales manipulation. Now here is the real truth. You probably work for one of these shit distributors and have a hyper-aggressive territory manager who is on your ass morning, noon, and night. You wake and go to bed with your phone going off answering questions to how are you going to “win your day” tomorrow and increase the sales numbers. So in turn you feel the heat and you cross that line and start doing things that are questionable. It happens in every sales organization at one point in time. Once you cross that line you can’t come back. The worse part is that one day you will get caught and it may be by circumstance , meaning some investigation into something that has nothing to do with you suddenly comes across your activities and behaviors and now your called into a meeting. That meeting is by 2 guys in suits from Arthrex who grill you for hours on your questionable and unsavory sales methods. Then after they find your lying you get terminated. I rather get let go because I didn’t hit my numbers the ethical way then bend or cave to the pressures of unethical selling. Now I get the flipside of that coin. You got bills to pay, mouthes to feed. The money is there, you worked hard, dealt with all the bullshit you getting from up top, the late night / early mornings in the OR. You need to justify the shit you taking by making a few extra bucks the easy way. The long and short? Arthrex knows all this shit is going on, they are guilty as well. It starts from up top and trickles down. What I think will happen is Arthrex will go direct , cut out the middlemen meaning the distributorships and hire consultants that they can monitor and pay less. It’s coming, the days of reps making 200k plus is gone and the few that are remaining will go once they decide to move to direct. Long term this will be for the better for Arthrex, they have plans to control and take over the orthopedic industry. They want to control the process and streamline it from the beginning to the end. The need for reps will dwindle, these surgeons are already on our technology for the most part, they know how this stuff works and how to trouble shoot. Reps in the future will only really need to do two things, set up the rooms and get the surgeons down to Naples to get them current with Arthrex technology. Arthrex don’t need to pay anyone 200k plus to do that. They will find reps who are happy making 100k and work a 9-5. They will have rotating teams much like shifts doctors and nurses have . This will essentially have reps covering cases around the clock because keep in mind Arthrex is takin a big plunge into the trauma market. They want to see a return on that investment at some point. My advice ? Get out of Med device sales, it’s a shitty job run by shitty people and in time whether you make money or not you will Hate having to chase a surgeon down in the OR at 35 to try and pitch a new anchor or cover that late trauma case that just rolled in at 2am. This job sucks period end of story. Don’t let these pieces of garbage compromise your integrity.
 









Doomsday will occur from within.

Don’t hate on reps that make at or above the market rate on sales. As opposed to making less than 6-7%. Looking at the landscape of the market and compensation plans, who has the better gig now?
 



Schmeiding said it best… our biggest competition is our reps! So yea reps are doing all sorts of unethical things to make that growth $$$. Arthrex keeps increasing goals while decreasing compensation. Que the swan song , this is the curtain call for the few reps left at Arthrex making what’s commonly referred to in the industry as Dollar One. Arthrex is going direct and once that happens everything will change. It’s changing now, these distributorships have no control over how they do business anymore. Arthrex corporate calls the shots and if you are doing unethical things to meet sales goals you will eventually get caught. Leave Arthrex now while you can and cash out. Go work for the competition and take a deal while you still have the chance . Once they go direct ever rep will be jumping ship.
 



anonymous said:
I haven’t seen that one but I don’t doubt it. It will get worse now that we are really only paid on growth. I talked to a surgeon who doesn’t really care what company that he uses and he thinks it is a matter of time before all the companies are brought down by a state or federal DA who wants to make a name for himself. I just try to stay below the radar because I don’t want to go to jail just to make $150k
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damn!! What are instances of reps going to jail??
 






Yes this is normal practice. I’ve seen this in the field numerous times. Opening a SB kit for a speed fix. Trying to get the account to stock that BS collagen tape. ACL disposables opened for pins they don’t need and won’t use. These are the short sighted individuals who make it worse for everybody and it’s an embarrassment. Maybe Arthrex needs to stop making bonus so unattainable and grow the fuck up. Maybe if every distributor didn’t treat the end of every month like the end of the fuckin world this would stop.
 



I can’t tell you how many times I popped open boxes to piece shit together to cover a case. A lot of the stuff in those disposables went to waste. If the hospitals scarily ordered what we needed this wouldn’t be an issue.
 



anonymous said:
I can’t tell you how many times I popped open boxes to piece shit together to cover a case. A lot of the stuff in those disposables went to waste. If the hospitals scarily ordered what we needed this wouldn’t be an issue.
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What OP is talking about is different than this. One of these is committing blatant fraud
 



anonymous said:
What OP is talking about is different than this. One of these is committing blatant fraud
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100% agree. You’ve got reps like the one you responded to trying to blame the hospital for them opening up items that aren’t needed when in reality the reps know exactly what they’re doing 95% of the time and it’s absolutely fraud. Intentionally opening unnecessary items during or before a case is sadly all too common and the reps who do this should be called out and dealt with accordingly.
 



Yes this is, reps will push limits to open as many products as they can. Not to mention Arthrex always upgrading their kits with some new suture or punch and or anchor and literally charging double. Example??? Syndesmodic Tightrope, surgeons can use the original version for a fraction of the cost. However that’s not what Arthrex or Agency owners want. Use the new version it’s “better for the patient” and double the cost for us. See where I’m going. So to the guy above stop with your bullshit. You know you’re ripping off hospitals and the patients each day. This is not an Arthrex thing it’s an industry wide practice across all medical devices.
 



Anyone know what’s going on in LI? Was in a case with an Arthrex rep and this kid was lost. Surgeon was trying to go to a bail out for an acl. I happened to be in there for the meniscal repair. This poor guy had 2 months on the job and was left by himself. Thankfully the surgeon and myself helped him out. I tend to be familiar with our competitors products, we were able to go to the supply room and grab what was needed to finish the case. I felt bad for this guy, he literally was sweating through this case. Where was his Mgr? And don’t tell me he is out “selling” How about training your reps before you send them out to blow a case up when they don’t have the confidence yet to cover some of the more complex surgeries. Arthrex on LI is a revolving door, can’t tell you how many reps I’ve seen come and go. After today this rep looked like he was ready to call it.
 



From what I am hearing about the new comp plan the examples of fraud will continue to rise. Agencies stand to lose a lot of money on this plan. They will resort to “working their book” to hit a number.
 



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