Hi everyone,

I received a phone call from Reliance Medical Wholesaler yesterday informing me that I could earn up to a $750.00 credit with their company if I would vote for the 3 representatives nominated from their company for the annual Outstanding Pharmaceutical Company Representative of the Year for 2006. Each vote would be worth $250.00 in credit. I don't do business with them and after this call I will never do business with a wholesaler that would offer to buy my vote for an award. Lot's of adjectives come to mind. How sad, cheap, awful, unacceptable, cheesy, sleazy,scummy and just plain crappy. How proud could those representatives be if they "won" the award using these tactics? What happened to honesty and integrity? Maybe it's a small price for Reliance to pay for marketing their company in front of all of us, but it's just wrong. Wrong! Please vote with your head and heart, not your hospital's checking account. Speak out and don't let this happen to all the representatives who have been nominated, who work hard to help us, have integrity, and deserve to win this award in the way it was meant to be won. That would be fair with no $$ strings attached.

Debby

Name of Facility: 270

City, State: Private, non-profit

Years as a Buyer: 29

I am with you on that one Debbie. Good Call. Thank you

Name of Facility: 220

City, State: Acute care Trauma II

Years as a Buyer: 4.5

I don't do business with them for various reasons, this kind of lack of character being one of them... thanks for letting everyone know!

Name of Facility: CVMC - 270 beds

City, State: Teaching

Years as a Buyer: 1

I agree.

You go girl!!!

Name of Facility: 350

Years as a Buyer: 7

If they stoop to this kind of tactic to get votes for their reps, doesn't it make you wonder about ALL their business practices?
I don't use secondary wholesalers, just on general principles, but I will definitely avoid these guys like the plague!
Ruth

I believe all of their reps should be pulled from the contest. This is not what I expect from PPO, and someone from PPO must make a stand! What if buyers used the same strategy when competing for Buyer of the Year!!??!! I have already informed my Director and they are being pulled from our approved vendor list. This is very unprofessional.

Name of Facility: 160

Years as a Buyer: 2

I'm not sure what to think on this one. Are they trying to buy votes, or are they trying to say "thank you if you vote for us." If the marketing people for the company would rethink this promotion and how it is being looked at by buyers,which is the ones controlling the votes, that they are trying to buy votes, it may be a good ideal to stop the promotion and say that wasn't what they were trying to do. And offer a different non-conflicting promotion.

Name of Facility: 600+

City, State: non-profit

Years as a Buyer: 12

For many years, we have been honoring Outstanding Representatives from pharmaceutical companies as nominated by our subscribers. Our original motivation was to offer praise and accolades to those representatives who were doing an outstanding job servicing pharmacy buyers. We felt that if some were recognized for their fine service, other reps would likely step forward and provide similar levels of service above and beyond what is normally expected by buyers.

As we have grown,this award has had an unexpected occurrence of becoming extremely competitive among representatives and companies, especially with this year's contest, to the extent of their being some issues with how the campaigning and voting is conducted, which was not something that could have been anticipated in creating the rules for this program.

So, unfortunately, we have decided to disband the award program for Outstanding Representative of the Year, starting now, in the middle of this year’s process, and upon further notice for the future.

We acknowledge and appreciate all of the representatives who were nominated this year, and hope you can understand our decision to cancel the award program at this time.

We also thank all the buyer-subscribers over the years who have stepped forward to nominate and recognize superior service from some of the finer representatives who call on them and assist them.

Another way for representatives to be acknowledged is the availability of our newsletter for publication of articles submitted by our buyer-subscribers, describing excellent service provided to them and their facility from one of their vendor reps. These articles would be approved by our editorial staff and we would also provide help in spelling and grammar as needed as well.

Thank you for your understanding in this decision.

Name of Facility: Summerdale Enterprises, Inc., for PPO newsletter

I do not agree with the decision to cancel the award program. The reps for Reliance should be removed and votes disregarded. There are a lot of really good reps out there that deserve the recognition!

Name of Facility: 780

City, State: Trauma Level IV

Years as a Buyer: 15 years

I support Kelly Reeves. I think Reliance should be disqualified altogether and there is no reason why good reps should be barred from this recognition.

Name of Facility: 220

City, State: Acute care Trauma II

Years as a Buyer: 4.5

I agree. Its to bad that something like this had to happen. I wish it could of been handled differently.
The buyers need to let their best reps know, WE APPRECIATE THEM!!

Name of Facility: 250

Years as a Buyer: 18 years

I agree 100%. To cancel the contest with NO mention of the company that caused the "issues" is quite apalling to me. To avoid tarnishing one company's name many, many deserving reps were punished.

Name of Facility: 160

Years as a Buyer: 2

Once again- It's sad that these secondary "BLACK MARKET" dealers are putting a black eye on the industry.