What does a medical representative do?
A medical representative is responsible for selling medical equipment, medications, and other medical supplies by demonstrating benefits and features to patients and healthcare professionals. Medical representatives work closely with their company's marketing department to develop strategic procedures and promotional techniques to attract customers and generate revenues for the business. They respond to the customers' inquiries and concerns, take their orders, and process their payments. A medical representative also analyzes the current trends in the medical industry to identify business opportunities that would establish a market presence.
Medical representative responsibilities
Here are examples of responsibilities from real medical representative resumes:
- Achieve market share growth in the psychiatry, cardiovascular, and neurology markets.
- Lead the nation in new product introduction of ZAC, an anti hypertension medication.
- Manage the sale of pharmaceuticals to treat hypertension, cholesterol, diabetes, depression, women's health and pain/neurological disorders.
- Manage specialty sales of psychiatry and other products across Mid-Michigan health-care systems.
- Manage products in gastroenterology, cardiology, endocrinology, psychiatry, rheumatology, and OB-GYN categories.
- Achieve sales growth objectives by incorporating product/technical knowledge, teamwork, customer and multi-product focus, innovation and creativity.
- Facilitate instruction to clinical and non-clinical personnel and patients on objectives of patient care services.
- Create access to ICU, HIV clinic, psych lock-down.
- Schedule appointments, completing demographic and insurance registration while using the IDX system.
- Input ICD-9 and CPT codes for hospital/physician charge entry, for timely claims filing.
- Train new sales reps in the field throughout the country for the Gastroenterology sales force.
- Distribute medical and surgical equipment and services to area hospitals, clinics and surgery centers.
- Register and schedule outpatient follow up initial, and specialty appointments by phone and IDX system.
- Promote in the cardiology, endocrinology, pulmonology, surgeons primary care and emergency room fields.
- Recruit to successfully promote primary products in hospital setting targeting ICU, ER, and CCU.
Medical representative skills and personality traits
We calculated that 17% of Medical Representatives are proficient in Patients, Customer Service, and First Aid Kits. They’re also known for soft skills such as Physical stamina, Self-confidence, and Customer-service skills.
We break down the percentage of Medical Representatives that have these skills listed on their resume here:
- Patients, 17%
Designed classes regarding nutrition and maintaining a healthy lifestyle for diabetic patients.
- Customer Service, 13%
Provided customer service to Purchasing Managers and assisted in fulfilling inventory needs of hospital medical supplies and accurately scheduling deliveries.
- First Aid Kits, 9%
Maintain first aid kits, inventory supplies, and restock and clean equipment.
- Incident Investigations, 9%
Participate in incident investigations and provide documentation for safety team and workers comp cases.
- CPR, 6%
Established and directed Military Training Network Site for CPR utilizing AHA guidelines providing required training/certification to 1500 employees over 4 years.
- Medical Terminology, 6%
Interpret medical records and understands medical terminology regarding soft tissue injuries.
"patients," "customer service," and "first aid kits" are among the most common skills that medical representatives use at work. You can find even more medical representative responsibilities below, including:
Physical stamina. The most essential soft skill for a medical representative to carry out their responsibilities is physical stamina. This skill is important for the role because "wholesale and manufacturing sales representatives are often on their feet for a long time and may carry heavy sample products." Additionally, a medical representative resume shows how their duties depend on physical stamina: "schedule physical therapy appointments for patients. "
Self-confidence. Another soft skill that's essential for fulfilling medical representative duties is self-confidence. The role rewards competence in this skill because "wholesale and manufacturing sales representatives must be confident and persuasive when making sales presentations." According to a medical representative resume, here's how medical representatives can utilize self-confidence in their job responsibilities: "prepare all medical documents for copying data entry customer service promote and maintain patient confidentiality"
Customer-service skills. This is an important skill for medical representatives to perform their duties. For an example of how medical representative responsibilities depend on this skill, consider that "wholesale and manufacturing sales representatives must be able to listen to the customer’s needs and concerns before and after the sale." This excerpt from a resume also shows how vital it is to everyday roles and responsibilities of a medical representative: "worked in a separate department of the call center, making outbound calls to customers to inform them of expired prescriptions. ".
Interpersonal skills. For certain medical representative responsibilities to be completed, the job requires competence in "interpersonal skills." The day-to-day duties of a medical representative rely on this skill, as "wholesale and manufacturing sales representatives must be able to work well with many types of people." For example, this snippet was taken directly from a resume about how this skill applies to what medical representatives do: "assisted with patients in examination rooms practiced interpersonal skills and became familiar with medical terminology. "
The three companies that hire the most medical representatives are:
- Amazon100 medical representatives jobs
- Atlantic Health8 medical representatives jobs
- University of Maryland Faculty Physicians Incorporated7 medical representatives jobs
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Compare different medical representatives
Medical representative vs. Outside sales
An outside sales representative is responsible for generating the company's sales and revenues by offering goods and services to existing and potential clients, responding to the customers' inquiries and concerns about the products, and researching on possible leads. Outside sales representatives monitor the current industry trends to identify new business opportunities that would help the business adjust to market changes to achieve profitability goals. An outside sales representative must have excellent communication and customer service skills, immediately resolving complaints and assisting on marketing promotions to gain sales prospects.
While similarities exist, there are also some differences between medical representatives and outside sales. For instance, medical representative responsibilities require skills such as "patients," "first aid kits," "incident investigations," and "cpr." Whereas a outside sales is skilled in "first hand," "ongoing support," "work ethic," and "crm." This is part of what separates the two careers.
Outside sales really shine in the manufacturing industry with an average salary of $83,118. Comparatively, medical representatives tend to make the most money in the pharmaceutical industry with an average salary of $39,941.On average, outside sales reach similar levels of education than medical representatives. Outside sales are 3.6% less likely to earn a Master's Degree and 2.1% less likely to graduate with a Doctoral Degree.Medical representative vs. Inside sales specialist
An inside sales specialist is primarily responsible for securing sales by reaching out to clients to sell products and services. They may communicate with customers through calls and correspondence or personally recommend products in a retail store setting. Moreover, they are also responsible for responding to inquiries or concerns, identifying the customers' needs, devising strategies to find sales opportunities, and discussing products to customers. An inside sales specialist is often required to meet sales goals and report to managers should there be any issues or problems.
Each career also uses different skills, according to real medical representative resumes. While medical representative responsibilities can utilize skills like "patients," "first aid kits," "incident investigations," and "cpr," inside sales specialists use skills like "crm," "sales process," "work ethic," and "customer satisfaction."
On average, inside sales specialists earn a higher salary than medical representatives. Some industries support higher salaries in each profession. Interestingly enough, inside sales specialists earn the most pay in the real estate industry with an average salary of $63,848. Whereas medical representatives have higher pay in the pharmaceutical industry, with an average salary of $39,941.In general, inside sales specialists achieve similar levels of education than medical representatives. They're 1.4% less likely to obtain a Master's Degree while being 2.1% less likely to earn a Doctoral Degree.Medical representative vs. Inside sales associate
An inside sales associate is responsible for selling the company's goods and services through remote communication. Inside sales associates make calls to potential customers, demonstrate the products' features, take orders, process payments, and inform the customers of the delivery details. They strategize the most effective sales pitches to attract the customers on purchasing more services that would generate revenues and increase the company's profitability and brand image. An inside sales associate also supports the marketing team in developing marketing campaigns and promotional offers depending on customer demands and requests.
There are many key differences between these two careers, including some of the skills required to perform responsibilities within each role. For example, a medical representative is likely to be skilled in "patients," "customer service," "first aid kits," and "incident investigations," while a typical inside sales associate is skilled in "inside sales," "sales associates," "sales process," and "customer satisfaction."
Inside sales associates make a very good living in the health care industry with an average annual salary of $47,342. On the other hand, medical representatives are paid the highest salary in the pharmaceutical industry, with average annual pay of $39,941.When it comes to education, inside sales associates tend to earn similar degree levels compared to medical representatives. In fact, they're 3.1% less likely to earn a Master's Degree, and 1.8% less likely to graduate with a Doctoral Degree.Medical representative vs. Pharmaceutical sales specialist
A pharmaceutical sales specialist's primary duty is to reach out to pharmacies, medical facilities, and physicians to discuss the latest medical drugs in an effort to secure sales. Their responsibilities typically revolve around learning and understanding everything about the products that they are offering, traveling to different areas to deliver samples, and maintaining records of all transactions. Furthermore, as a pharmaceutical sales specialist, it is essential to create marketing materials and build positive relationships with clients to accomplish sales targets, all while adhering to the company's policies and regulations.
Types of medical representative
Updated January 8, 2025
