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What does a professional healthcare representative do?

Updated January 8, 2025
7 min read
What does a professional healthcare representative do

Professional Healthcare representatives are sales employees who manage the company's healthcare products and healthcare client accounts. They are in charge of achieving the sales targets of the company. They form good relationships with clients and distributors to ensure continued business with them. They may visit their clients' office from time to time to check in on them and to provide samples of new products. Professional Healthcare Representatives should be updated on the latest trends in the healthcare industry, as well as new product releases related to their company's main business. They should also know all the pertinent details on the products they sell so they can answer their clients' questions.

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Professional healthcare representative responsibilities

Here are examples of responsibilities from real professional healthcare representative resumes:

  • Lead several workshops during POA meetings, and district conference calls, with the aim to improve the team's performance.
  • Achieve sales growth objectives by incorporating product/technical knowledge, teamwork, customer and multi-product focus, innovation and creativity.
  • Promote pharmaceutical products to medical professionals, providing education to medical staffs and patients on disease states and therapies.
  • Account manager for the sales of cardiovascular, diabetes, neurology, and urology products.
  • Screen uninsure and limit insured patients on a daily basis to determine disability and Medicaid eligibility.
  • Provide elite, dedicate support for cardiology units using the new cardiology product.
  • Promote cardiovascular, allergy, asthma, and antibiotics by educational activity from Schering Plough.
  • Experience in neurology and narcotic pharmaceuticals.
  • Cerate joint medicine and surgery lecture programs nationally.
  • Implement sales strategies with pharmacists, diabetes educators, smoking-cessation specialists
  • Develop speakers in surgery, pulmonary and psychiatry to increase market share across territory.
  • Direct strategic partnership with local diabetes community resulting in increase sales revenue that exceed division goals.
  • Conduct claim, prior authorization and eligibility inquiries for providers to validate data submit to Florida Medicaid.
  • Cultivate relationships and interact with primary care physicians on an allergy and asthma portfolio in a competitive, dynamic market.
  • Promote the respiratory, cardiovascular and erectile dysfunction franchises to primary care, urology, cardiology, allergy/immunology and pediatric physicians.

Professional healthcare representative skills and personality traits

We calculated that 16% of Professional Healthcare Representatives are proficient in Government Agencies, Patients, and Product Portfolio. They’re also known for soft skills such as Customer-service skills, Physical stamina, and Self-confidence.

We break down the percentage of Professional Healthcare Representatives that have these skills listed on their resume here:

  • Government Agencies, 16%

    Maintain ongoing communication with government agencies regarding the status of claims and interview clients in obtaining maximum benefit coverage.

  • Patients, 15%

    Maintain ongoing communication between Finance Department and medical staff in order to expedite in obtaining maximum benefits approval for patients.

  • Product Portfolio, 9%

    Managed Cardiovascular/Diabetes Disease state product portfolio to Primary Care/Internal Medicine Physicians with a territory quota of $2.5 million.

  • Strategic Thinking, 8%

    Utilized strategic thinking by developing and updating business plans, resulting in over $8,000,000 in product sales in 2007.

  • Product Knowledge, 8%

    Orchestrated lunch and learn educational programs with medical professionals to facilitate greater product knowledge and brand visibility.

  • Disease State, 6%

    Developed Key Opinion Leaders, Endocrinology and Cardiology Speakers to educate local physicians on promoted products and disease states.

Common skills that a professional healthcare representative uses to do their job include "government agencies," "patients," and "product portfolio." You can find details on the most important professional healthcare representative responsibilities below.

Customer-service skills. The most essential soft skill for a professional healthcare representative to carry out their responsibilities is customer-service skills. This skill is important for the role because "wholesale and manufacturing sales representatives must be able to listen to the customer’s needs and concerns before and after the sale." Additionally, a professional healthcare representative resume shows how their duties depend on customer-service skills: "achieved and surpassed sales quotas by focusing on customer driven service. "

Physical stamina. Another soft skill that's essential for fulfilling professional healthcare representative duties is physical stamina. The role rewards competence in this skill because "wholesale and manufacturing sales representatives are often on their feet for a long time and may carry heavy sample products." According to a professional healthcare representative resume, here's how professional healthcare representatives can utilize physical stamina in their job responsibilities: "pain management, physical medicine and rehabilitation, orthopedic/sports medicine and rheumatology). "

Self-confidence. professional healthcare representatives are also known for self-confidence, which are critical to their duties. You can see how this skill relates to professional healthcare representative responsibilities, because "wholesale and manufacturing sales representatives must be confident and persuasive when making sales presentations." A professional healthcare representative resume example shows how self-confidence is used in the workplace: "performed data entry of patient information, processed confidential patient medical records requested by authorized persons or agencies. "

All professional healthcare representative skills

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Compare different professional healthcare representatives

Professional healthcare representative vs. Sales support technician

A senior sales specialist oversees and provides solutions to improve a company's sales operations. It is their responsibility to conduct market research and analysis, establish budgets and guidelines, generate leads, and develop sales strategies and sales forecasts. They also liaise and build positive relationships with vendors and suppliers, set sales targets, and resolve customer issues and complaints. Moreover, being a senior sales specialist, it is essential to lead and serve as a mentor to junior sales specialists while implementing and promoting the company's policies and regulations.

If we compare the average professional healthcare representative annual salary with that of a sales support technician, we find that sales support technicians typically earn a $22,517 higher salary than professional healthcare representatives make annually.

These skill sets are where the common ground ends though. The responsibilities of a professional healthcare representative are more likely to require skills like "government agencies," "patients," "product portfolio," and "strategic thinking." On the other hand, a job as a sales support technician requires skills like "customer service," "inbound calls," "customer support," and "ip." As you can see, what employees do in each career varies considerably.

On average, sales support technicians reach similar levels of education than professional healthcare representatives. Sales support technicians are 3.4% less likely to earn a Master's Degree and 0.8% less likely to graduate with a Doctoral Degree.

Professional healthcare representative vs. Senior sales specialist

A technical sales specialist is in charge of devising strategies to develop technical solutions for optimizing sales procedures. Their responsibilities revolve around identifying market and client needs, assessing existing programs and projects to determine its strengths and weaknesses, and recommending improvements as needed. A technical sales specialist may also interact with walk-in clients, or reach out to them through calls and correspondence, to demonstrate and offer products and services. Furthermore, as a technical sales specialist, it is essential to produce progress reports and maintain records of transactions, all while prioritizing to meet sales targets.

Senior sales specialist positions earn higher pay than professional healthcare representative roles. They earn a $37,319 higher salary than professional healthcare representatives per year.A few skills overlap for professional healthcare representatives and senior sales specialists. Resumes from both professions show that the duties of each career rely on skills like "patients," "product portfolio," and "product knowledge. "

In addition to the difference in salary, there are some other key differences worth noting. For example, professional healthcare representative responsibilities are more likely to require skills like "government agencies," "strategic thinking," "disease state," and "data entry." Meanwhile, a senior sales specialist has duties that require skills in areas such as "customer service," "sales training," "customer satisfaction," and "account management." These differences highlight just how different the day-to-day in each role looks.

Senior sales specialists may earn a higher salary than professional healthcare representatives, but senior sales specialists earn the most pay in the pharmaceutical industry with an average salary of $98,432. On the other hand, professional healthcare representatives receive higher pay in the pharmaceutical industry, where they earn an average salary of $38,389.Average education levels between the two professions vary. Senior sales specialists tend to reach similar levels of education than professional healthcare representatives. In fact, they're 0.5% less likely to graduate with a Master's Degree and 0.8% less likely to earn a Doctoral Degree.

Professional healthcare representative vs. Technical sales specialist

A medical sales specialist is an individual who advertises, markets, and distributes a specific pharmaceutical product or medical equipment to medical establishments. Medical sales specialists must manage a network of independent representatives and maintain relationships with their clients to attain territory-specific sales goals. They develop marketing strategies and business sales plans to identify key growth areas and deliver short and long-term corporate objectives. Medical sales specialists should also conduct analyses on product and market trends to achieve and exceed sales goals.

On average scale, technical sales specialists bring in higher salaries than professional healthcare representatives. In fact, they earn a $49,556 higher salary per year.Using the responsibilities included on professional healthcare representatives and technical sales specialists resumes, we found that both professions have similar skill requirements, such as "product knowledge," "internal medicine," and "sales quota.rdquo;

The required skills of the two careers differ considerably. For example, professional healthcare representatives are more likely to have skills like "government agencies," "patients," "product portfolio," and "strategic thinking." But a technical sales specialist is more likely to have skills like "customer service," "technical knowledge," "cloud," and "product sales."

When it comes to education, technical sales specialists tend to earn similar degree levels compared to professional healthcare representatives. In fact, they're 1.1% less likely to earn a Master's Degree, and 0.2% less likely to graduate with a Doctoral Degree.

Professional healthcare representative vs. Medical sales specialist

Medical sales specialists tend to earn a higher pay than professional healthcare representatives by an average of $32,917 per year.While their salaries may vary, professional healthcare representatives and medical sales specialists both use similar skills to perform their duties. Resumes from both professions include skills like "patients," "product knowledge," and "internal medicine. "Each job also requires different skills to carry out their responsibilities. A professional healthcare representative uses "government agencies," "product portfolio," "strategic thinking," and "disease state." Medical sales specialists are more likely to have duties that require skills in "medical devices," "medical sales," "capital equipment," and "sales territory. "medical sales specialists enjoy the best pay in the pharmaceutical industry, with an average salary of $86,947. For comparison, professional healthcare representatives earn the highest salary in the pharmaceutical industry.The average resume of medical sales specialists showed that they earn similar levels of education compared to professional healthcare representatives. So much so that theyacirc;euro;trade;re 0.9% more likely to earn a Master's Degree and less likely to earn a Doctoral Degree by 0.2%.

Types of professional healthcare representative

Updated January 8, 2025

Zippia Research Team
Zippia Team

Editorial Staff

The Zippia Research Team has spent countless hours reviewing resumes, job postings, and government data to determine what goes into getting a job in each phase of life. Professional writers and data scientists comprise the Zippia Research Team.