CCPP Module 22, Section 3: Conducting Introductory Meetings and Demonstrations
MODULE 22: PHYSICIAN RELATIONS AND NETWORKING

Section 3: Conducting Introductory Meetings and Demonstrations

Master the crucial “first meeting” by learning how to structure a concise and compelling presentation, demonstrate your value with case studies, and skillfully answer the tough questions that build confidence.

SECTION 22.3

Conducting Introductory Meetings and Demonstrations

From Proposal to Partnership: Mastering the First Impression and Building the Foundation of Trust.

22.3.1 The “Why”: The Meeting as a Clinical Encounter

You have successfully navigated the most difficult part of the process: you have secured a meeting. The countless hours of research, data analysis, and strategic outreach have paid off. Now, you stand at a pivotal moment. The introductory meeting is far more than a presentation; it is a live, high-stakes clinical encounter. The “patient” in this scenario is the medical practice itself, and its leaders—the physician and the practice manager—are the consulting specialists you must win over. Your proposal document was the detailed patient chart; this meeting is the live consultation.

Your objective is not to “sell” them. Your objective is to achieve three critical, clinical goals: (1) Establish Trust, (2) Confirm the Diagnosis, and (3) Gain Agreement on the Treatment Plan. Every word you say, every slide you show, and every question you answer must be filtered through this clinical framework. You are not a vendor demonstrating a product. You are a clinical peer presenting a case, demonstrating your diagnostic acumen, and collaboratively building a plan of care for their practice and their patients. The confidence, empathy, and evidence-based approach you apply to patient care are the exact same skills you must now apply in the boardroom.

This meeting is your single best opportunity to transition from a name on a proposal to a trusted future colleague. It is where your data-driven assertions become a tangible vision for a better way of practicing medicine. The stakes are immense. A well-executed meeting can launch a career-defining partnership. A poorly executed one can close the door permanently. This section will provide you with the master playbook for this encounter, ensuring you are not just prepared, but poised to demonstrate the full force of your clinical and professional value.

Pharmacist Analogy: Presenting at Grand Rounds

Imagine you have been invited to present a complex patient case at your hospital’s Grand Rounds. The audience is filled with attending physicians, department heads, residents, and other senior clinicians. This is a high-pressure environment where your clinical reasoning and communication skills are on full display. Your success depends on your ability to present a clear, concise, and compelling clinical narrative.

Your introductory meeting with a prospective practice is your personal Grand Rounds. Think about how you would structure that presentation:

  • The HPI (History of Present Illness): You would start with a concise summary of the patient’s chief complaint and the history of their problem. In your meeting, this is your “Diagnosis” section. “Good morning. We’re here to discuss the case of Main Street Family Practice. The chief complaint is a challenge in meeting quality targets for diabetes, with a history of a 14% A1c poor control rate, presenting a significant clinical and financial risk…”
  • Review of Systems & Physical Exam: You’d present the relevant data—the labs, the vitals, the imaging reports. In your meeting, this is your review of their MIPS data, their patient demographics, and the operational challenges you’ve identified. You are presenting the objective evidence.
  • The Assessment: This is where you connect the dots. You provide your clinical judgment on what the data means. “The assessment is a practice under significant VBC pressure with clear gaps in chronic disease management, leading to suboptimal patient outcomes and missed financial incentives.”
  • The Plan: You don’t just state the problem; you propose a multi-step plan. “The plan is to initiate a new therapeutic intervention: an embedded clinical pharmacist service. Step 1: We will focus on the 150 highest-risk diabetic patients. Step 2: We will implement a CCM workflow to provide continuous oversight. Step 3: We will track A1c and BP metrics quarterly…”
  • The Q&A: After your presentation, the toughest questions come from the senior attendings. They challenge your assumptions and test your knowledge. You must answer with data, evidence, and confidence. This is identical to handling objections from the physician and practice manager.

By approaching the meeting with the structure and gravitas of a Grand Rounds presentation, you fundamentally change the dynamic. You are not asking for a favor; you are presenting a compelling clinical case and defending your proposed course of treatment. You are operating as a respected peer.

22.3.2 Pre-Game Masterclass: The Final Preparation Phase

You do not walk into a code unprepared, and you must not walk into this meeting unprepared. The work you do in the 24-48 hours before the meeting is just as important as the meeting itself. This is where you move from having a plan to achieving a state of complete readiness, allowing you to be present, confident, and adaptable during the live conversation.

A. The Pitch Deck: Your Visual Storytelling Tool

While your full proposal is the comprehensive reference document, your pitch deck is the sharp, concise visual aid for the meeting itself. It is not a script to be read. It is a series of visual signposts that guide the conversation and make your key points memorable. The rule is simple: less is more. A busy physician will be immediately turned off by dense, text-heavy slides.

The 5-Slide Master Pitch Deck

Your presentation should consist of no more than five core slides, each with a clear purpose. Use large fonts, powerful images or icons, and minimal text.

Slide # Title Content & Strategy Verbal Script Cue
1 The Opportunity at [Practice Name] A single, powerful chart showing THEIR MIPS data for a key measure (e.g., A1c control) compared to the national average or top-performer benchmark. Put their logo on the slide. “We’re here today because of the data. There’s a clear opportunity to move from here… to here, and in doing so, capture significant clinical and financial value.”
2 The Solution: An Integrated Clinical Pharmacist A simple, clean workflow diagram. Show a box for “Provider Identifies Patient,” an arrow to “Referral to Pharmacist,” arrow to “Pharmacist-Led Visit (CMM/CCM),” arrow back to “Provider Note & Plan.” “The solution is not to add another task to your plate, but to add a new expert to your team. Here is a simple view of how seamlessly this integrates into your existing workflow.”
3 Demonstrating the Impact: A Case Study Present a powerful, anonymized case study. Use a “Before” and “After” format. Before: Show a complex med list and poor labs. After: Show the optimized med list and improved labs. “To make this real, let’s look at a patient very similar to those in your panel. Here’s where they started… and after three months of pharmacist-led management, here’s where we got them.”
4 Projected Outcomes: Clinical & Financial Use three large “call-out” boxes with icons. Box 1: “Improve A1c MIPS Score by 20%”. Box 2: “Generate $50k+ in New CCM Revenue”. Box 3: “Save 5+ Provider Hours/Week”. “This intervention is designed to deliver three distinct types of value: better quality scores, a positive financial return, and perhaps most importantly, giving you back your most valuable resource—time.”
5 The Partnership Pathway: A 90-Day Pilot A simple timeline graphic. Month 1: Onboarding & Workflow Integration. Month 2: Patient Enrollment & Initial Visits. Month 3: First Progress Report & ROI Analysis. “We’re not asking for a long-term commitment today. We’re proposing a 90-day pilot program designed to prove the value. Here’s the simple pathway to getting started.”

B. Rehearsal and Role-Playing: The Key to Fluency

You would never counsel a patient on a new device without practicing with it first. Likewise, you must never deliver a presentation without rehearsing it. Your goal is not to memorize a script, but to internalize the flow and key talking points so you can deliver them naturally and conversationally. The best way to do this is to role-play.

  • Record Yourself: Use your phone to record yourself giving the 15-minute presentation. Listen back. Do you sound confident? Are you using filler words like “um” or “like”? Is your pacing good? This is often a painful but incredibly effective exercise.
  • Practice with a Colleague: Find a trusted pharmacist colleague (or even a non-pharmacist friend) to act as the physician or practice manager. Have them listen to your pitch and then hit you with the toughest questions and objections they can think of. Practice your responses from the “Objection Handling Matrix.”
  • Anticipate Their Questions: Based on your deep research, what specific questions are they likely to ask? If you’re talking to a practice that just invested in a new EHR, they’ll ask about your experience with that system. If you’re talking to a solo physician nearing retirement, they’ll ask how this helps their transition plan. Prepare specific answers for their specific context.

C. The Meeting Logistics Checklist: Controlling the Controllables

Do not let a simple technical or logistical failure derail your meticulously prepared presentation. Control every variable you can.

  • For Virtual Meetings:
    • Test the meeting link 15 minutes early.
    • Ensure your internet connection is stable. Have a phone hotspot ready as a backup.
    • Check your background. It should be professional and free of distractions. A simple, blurred background is often best.
    • Check your lighting. You should be well-lit from the front.
    • Use a quality headset or microphone to ensure your audio is crystal clear.
    • Have your presentation loaded and ready to share, but also have a PDF version ready to email immediately if screen sharing fails.
  • For In-Person Meetings:
    • Arrive 15 minutes early. Not 5 minutes. 15.
    • Dress professionally. Your attire should signal that you are a clinical peer.
    • Bring multiple printed, professionally bound copies of your full proposal. Do not hand them out until the end of the meeting.
    • Bring your presentation on a USB drive and also have it accessible from a cloud service (e.g., Google Drive) on your phone in case their computer fails.
    • Bring a notebook and a good pen. Taking notes shows you are listening intently.

22.3.3 Executing the Meeting: The 4-Act Play

The meeting itself is a performance in four acts. Your role is to be the confident, credible director who guides the conversation from introduction to a clear, actionable conclusion. You must command the room not with arrogance, but with the quiet authority that comes from deep preparation.

Act 1 (Minutes 0-3): The Connect & Frame

This is the most critical phase for establishing rapport and setting the tone. Do not jump straight into your slides. Your goal here is to be a human and a peer first, a presenter second.

  • The Opening: Thank them sincerely for their time. “Dr. Smith, Ms. Davis, thank you so much for making time for me today. I know how incredibly busy you are.”
  • The Common Ground: Use your research to find a point of connection. “Dr. Smith, I saw from your bio you did your residency at University Hospital. I completed my pharmacy residency just across town at City General.”
  • The Frame: State the purpose and structure of the meeting to manage expectations. “My goal over the next 15-20 minutes is to share a proposal for a clinical partnership that I believe can help you achieve your goals for diabetes care. I’ll briefly walk through the data that led me here, outline the solution, and then I want to reserve plenty of time for your questions.” This shows respect for their time and positions the meeting as a conversation.

Act 2 (Minutes 3-10): The Compelling Case

This is the core of your presentation. You will now walk them through your 5-slide pitch deck, but it must be a narrative, not a robotic reading of the slides. This is where you speak to their dual currencies.

  • Slide 1 (The Diagnosis): Present their data without judgment. To the Practice Manager: “As you can see, this A1c control rate places the practice in the 60th percentile nationally, which can negatively impact your MIPS score and potential shared savings.” To the Physician: “And Dr. Smith, we both know that behind this number are patients who are at very high risk for complications.”
  • Slide 2 (The Solution): Focus on integration and workload reduction. To the Physician: “The key here is that this process is designed to be seamless for you. A simple EHR flag is all it takes to get your highest-risk patient onto my schedule, saving you significant time in the exam room.”
  • Slide 3 (The Case Study): Make it a story. Give the anonymized patient a name. To the Physician: “Let me tell you about ‘Sarah.’ She was just like many of your patients… on three oral agents with an A1c of 9.5%. After working with her on a new regimen including a GLP-1 and optimizing her diet, we got her down to 7.1% in four months.”
  • Slide 4 (The Outcomes): Connect the dots explicitly. To the Practice Manager: “The revenue from CCM alone, which we can implement immediately, makes this program budget-neutral in the first quarter.” To the Physician: “And a 20% improvement in this quality score is not just a number; it represents dozens of patients like ‘Sarah’ who are now better controlled and at lower risk.”

Act 3 (Minutes 10-18): The Conversation & Discovery

This is where the meeting pivots from a presentation to a conversation. Your goal is to stop talking and start listening. How you handle questions and objections will make or break the partnership.

Masterclass Playbook: Handling Objections with the “A-R-A” Method

Never get defensive. Treat every objection as a request for more information. Use the Acknowledge-Respond-Ask (A-R-A) method.

Objection: “This seems like it will be a lot of work for my staff to implement.”

  • Acknowledge: “That’s a completely valid concern. The last thing you need is another complex workflow to manage.” (This validates their feeling and shows you’re listening).
  • Respond: “My implementation plan is actually designed to be ‘pharmacist-heavy and staff-light.’ I will personally handle the EHR template creation and provide a 30-minute lunch-and-learn for your MAs on the simple, three-click referral process. Their total new workload is less than 5 minutes per patient.” (This provides a direct, concise answer that addresses the underlying fear).
  • Ask: “Does that sound like a manageable approach for your team?” (This turns the monologue back into a dialogue and confirms you’ve resolved their concern).

Act 4 (Minutes 18-20): The Close & The Follow-Up

You must end the meeting with a clear, mutually agreed-upon next step. Do not leave the room with a vague “We’ll be in touch.” Your confidence in this final stage signals your professionalism.

  • Summarize the Agreement: “So, it sounds like we’re in agreement that there’s a real opportunity here and that a pilot program is a logical next step to validate the model in your specific practice.”
  • Propose the Next Step: Be specific. “The next step would be for me to draft a simple 90-Day Pilot Agreement that outlines the scope of services, the patient population, and the metrics we’ll track. I can also schedule a brief 30-minute call with you and your lead MA to walk through the proposed EHR workflow.”
  • Schedule It Now: This is the key. While you have them in the room, pull out your calendar. “Do you have your calendars handy? Would Thursday at 2 PM work for that workflow call?” Getting the next meeting on the books before you leave is the strongest indicator of a successful close.
  • The Final Handshake: As you leave, hand them the bound copies of your full proposal. “I’ll leave you with the full proposal which has all the details we discussed today. I’ll send over that meeting invitation for Thursday. Thank you again for your time; I’m incredibly excited about the potential to work together.”