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The Editor's Take: Practicioners still rely on in-office connection
The pandemic was never going to be a rising tide that lifts all boats phenomenon for the supplement industry, but it washed over the practitioner channel with a particularly complex set of eddies and undercurrents.
Offices were shuttered by lockdowns and sales growth fell by half in 2020, but it also accelerated a transition to telehealth, effectively erasing geographical barriers and thus opening practices up to new patients. Now, with the dust mostly settled and practitioner emerging as the fastest growing channel for supplements in 2022, we can look at survey results in NBJ's new 2023 Practitioner Report and see just how much that acceleration to virtual has impacted the channel.
What the survey tells us is that telehealth has a long way to go in replacing in-office visits. More than half of practitioners responding to the survey, 58%, said they offer telehealth consults, but that means 42% do not. Among those who do, only 23% of responding practitioners said they see 80% or more of their patients in virtual sessions. The biggest share of practitioners using telehealth, 40%, said they see only 10 to 20% of their patients in online consultations.
The use of telehealth also turns out to be very dependent on the type of practitioner. Among the practitioners using telehealth, the discipline most likely to rely on virtual visits were non-registered nutritionists, with 44% claiming that they see 80% or more of their patients online, not far ahead of the 42% of wellness coaches show said the same. Among registered offering online consultations, 34% saying they see 80% or more of their patients that way.
Not surprisingly, acupuncturists and chiropractors were the least likely to see seeing such a large share of their patients online, but MDs and osteopaths also appear more reserved with the technology. Only 14% said they see 80% or more of their patients online, while 52% estimate the share of patient seen online at 10 to 20%.
The takeaway for supplement brands in the practitioner channel might be that predictions that a digitally flattened landscape without geographical boundaries would allow practitioners to quickly grow their practices might have been overstate. Another takeaway might also be that, more than ever, how your brand sells will depend on who is selling it. MDs are not only going to recommend different products, than what a wellness coach recommends, they are going to be recommending them to different patients, patients who want that in-office connection or have conditions that require a clinical setting.
Knowing who is seeing whom and where they are seeing them could have implications up and down org chart for practitioner brands.
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| | Rick Polito
As Nutrition Business Journal's editor-in-chief, Rick Polito writes about the trends, deals and developments in the natural nutrition industry, looking for the little companies coming up and the big money coming in. An award-winning journalist, Polito knows that facts and figures never give the complete context and that the story of this industry has always been about people. |
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| | | How has the increasingly virtual world affected the Practitioner channel? |
| | NBJ surveyed over 1,900 practitioners this year to understand their relationship with supplements and their opinions on telehealth and practitioner exclusivity. Unlock this data along with a comprehensive understanding of the practitioner sales channel within the dynamic supplements industry in the 2023 Practitioner Report. This report delves into the nuances of the practitioner sales ecosystem, offering a strategic roadmap for investors and supplement providers to navigate and optimize their engagement with healthcare professionals. |
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