Day: June 24, 2022

To say that the PTS Diagnostics Domestic Marketing and Sales team have been here, there and a little bit everywhere is an understatement during most of Q2. However, this is a welcomed sign of the world transitioning back to a familiar sense of normalcy. One of the main business drivers our company focuses on is live, face-to-face meetings. These events span national medical professional association meetings and national distributor sales meetings throughout the year with the purpose to engage and interact with customers. To learn more about the roadshow the PTS team has been on, read below!

American Pharmacists Association March 18-21 || San Antonio, TX

Our “Why?”:

• Pharmacists utilize our products to bring business into their stores in addition to helping patients. They provide valuable health services, such as testing for cholesterol and A1C, outside of the traditional healthcare setting and closer to the patients.
• Traditionally, this business has been mostly done on a cash basis, but legislation is opening pharmacists’ services for reimbursement as well.
• Pharmacists have an excellent opportunity to further evolve their role via point-of-care testing (POCT), especially considering the pressure that COVID-19 has placed on the health care system. Proper training, certification, and advances in testing technology enable POCT to occur in any setting.
• Pharmacists using collaborative practice agreements based upon CLIA-POCT results have shown to provide efficacious and safe disease management. To get started, the pharmacy must enroll as a CLIA-waived testing site through the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS). The CMS 11612 form is an application that is mailed to the pharmacy’s state agency.
• The pharmacy continues to be an ideal place for health care advice, and pharmacists will continue to be sought out for recommendations of OTC treatments.
• The role of the pharmacist is evolving in patient care and using CLIA-waived tests in the community pharmacy setting is an opportunity to advance the profession and aid in disease management during COVID-19.

American College of Cardiology April 2-4 || Washington, DC

Our “Why?”:

• PTS Products are perfectly suited for in-office testing during visits for a wide range of medical specialties that include but are not limited to Family Practitioners, General Practitioners, Pediatricians, and Cardiologists.
• Cardiologists have shown strong interest in the CardioChek products as they can quickly get a baseline for patients that may not have been to their regular physician in a while for annual exams. Other patients simply forget to bring their numbers to their appointments or don’t know how to access their results via online hospital portals, etc.
• About 1 in 5 adolescents have an unhealthy cholesterol reading, and nearly 93 million U.S. adults aged 20 or older have high cholesterol. But since high cholesterol doesn’t have symptoms, many people don’t know their levels are high.
• When cholesterol testing should be done:
  • Every 5 years for people aged 20 or older who are at low risk for cardiovascular disease.
  • More frequently than every 5 years for people with cardiovascular disease risk factors.
• Point of care testing for cholesterol, related lipids, and blood glucose can serve as a diagnostic tool that provides information for immediate risk assessment and therapeutic monitoring of heart disease and diabetes.
• Healthcare providers use lipid panels for both children and adults to evaluate the risk of cardiovascular diseases like heart disease, heart attack (myocardial infarction), and stroke.

• Who Benefits?
  • Patients requiring primary prevention of cardiovascular disease.
  • Management of patients with pre-existing cardiovascular disease.
  • Patients with a history of familial hypercholesterolemia.
  • Children can also have high cholesterol, which may require a lipid panel blood test.

• Reasons a provider may order a lipid panel include:
  • As a routine test to determine if the cholesterol level is normal or falls into a borderline-, intermediate- or high-risk category.
  • To monitor the cholesterol level if you had abnormal results on a previous test or other risk factors for heart disease.
  • To monitor the body’s response to treatment, such as cholesterol medications or lifestyle changes.
  • To help diagnose other medical conditions, such as liver disease.

Henry Schein National Sales Meeting March 22 || Virtual Meeting

Our “Why?”:

• Henry Schein is one of our main national distribution partners
• PTS provides Henry Schein branded CardioChek Plus analyzers and private labeled Lipid+eGLU Smart Bundle test strips.
• This year was a virtual meeting format due to covid concerns.
• The virtual format consisted of 12, 10-minute sessions with different Henry Schein teams rotating through, mostly grouped by geography.
• The virtual meeting was beneficial, but all will be looking to get back to in-person meetings.
• As our national distributors carry thousands of products, it is important to have dedicated time to connect with their sales teams and keep our products top of mind.
• This includes product details and benefits, key features to promote, how to handle any objections, and how we compare to the competition.
• As Covid has started to diminish in many parts of the country, our national distribution partners are looking to revitalize revenue streams beyond covid testing and vaccinations.
• Henry Schein recognizes the value of our products as they promote the Henry Schein branded PTS Diagnostics product line; it is important to continue to work with their sales teams as there are many products fighting for their attention to present to end-users.

NDC (National Distribution & Contracting) April 11-13 || Nashville, TN (Corporate Office Location)

Our “Why?”:

• Even though NDC is a national distribution partner of PTS Diagnostics, it consists of hundreds of small, independent health care distributors that utilize NDC’s membership to help provide efficiencies and support.This includes group buying power, distribution and logistics, contracts & rebates, and promotions & incentives.
• From a manufacturing perspective, NDC partners with over 700+ manufacturers including PTS Diagnostics to save both time and money through their custom supply chain solutions that maximize efficiencies for distribution members.
• This year’s event was held at the Gaylord Opryland Hotel in Nashville, TN.
• The annual conference is always held in Nashville where the corporate offices are located.
• Not all NDC distributors specialize and call on the same customer base. Some may specialize in lab equipment while others may focus on consumables for example.
• This year’s conference was in a roundtable format as opposed to a traditional trade-show concept.
• Attendees were able to pre-schedule personal, dedicated one-to-one meetings with us at the show.
• PTS met with several distributors that were looking for new opportunities to carry our products, further expanding our presence in the market.

McKesson National Sales Meeting May 17-19 || Las Vegas, Nevada

Our “Why?”:

• As of 2021, McKesson is the 7th largest US corporation in the Fortune 500.
• McKesson works with biopharma companies, care providers, pharmacies, manufacturers, governments, and others to deliver insights, products, and services.
• McKesson is another national distribution partner of PTS Diagnostics that we have worked with for years.
• Due to Covid, this was the first time to reconnect in person with their sales team and management in a few years on a large scale.
• The PTS booth had hundreds of interested sales and marketing team members visit the booth and had just under 100 individuals looking for more information and interested in a follow-up conversation with a PTS sales team member.
• Like Henry Schein, McKesson sales members and management are eager to find additional revenue paths post-Covid and see PTS Diagnostics’ products as a potential solution.

IMCO (Independent Medical Distributors) June 12-15 || Lake Buena Vista, FL

Our “Why?”:

• IMCO is like NDC in that it is made up of independent distribution members.
• PTS exhibited to the nearly 200 member distributors representing veterinary, dental, home health, acute care, etc.
• PTS visited with familiar faces and continued to promote our CardioChek and A1C product lines.