Medtech territory targeting: ranking accounts by procedure volume
A medtech territory ranked by hospital size will systematically mis-prioritize, because bed count is a poor proxy for the volume of the specific procedure a device serves. Medicare publishes procedure-level volume, and using it changes the call order.
6 min read
Rank on the procedure, not the account
Medicare inpatient DRG data gives discharges, average charges and average payments by DRG by provider. For any device tied to an identifiable procedure family, this produces a direct ranking of hospitals by the volume that actually matters. Geographic variation data adds county-level utilization and cost intensity for outpatient and physician-administered services.
Find the individual clinicians inside the account
Medicare physician utilization identifies which clinicians perform the relevant services and at what volume, so the account plan names people rather than institutions. NPPES supplies taxonomy and affiliation; Care Compare and Provider of Services supply the facility structure they sit inside.
Example pull from RepVector
Retained procedure volume rows for a resolved market.
Medicare inpatient discharges by DRG for California
| DRG | Discharges | Avg total payment | Avg Medicare payment | Avg submitted charge | Area |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| INTRACRANIAL HEMORRHAGE OR CEREBRAL INFARCTION WITH MCC | 6,872 | 24,499.813 | 20,665.075 | 174,368.21 | California |
| INTRACRANIAL HEMORRHAGE OR CEREBRAL INFARCTION WITH CC OR TPA IN 24 HOURS | 6,542 | 12,570.263 | 9,830.816 | 96,350.928 | California |
| SEIZURES WITHOUT MCC | 2,616 | 12,034.822 | 9,550.55 | 78,539.938 | California |
| SEIZURES WITH MCC | 2,463 | 23,289.454 | 20,699.556 | 135,751.336 | California |
| TRANSIENT ISCHEMIA WITHOUT THROMBOLYTIC | 2,379 | 9,567.931 | 7,696.87 | 81,481.85 | California |
| CRANIOTOMY AND ENDOVASCULAR INTRACRANIAL PROCEDURES WITH MCC | 2,374 | 59,907.848 | 51,720.597 | 384,874.024 | California |
First 6 of 100 retained rows. See the full field list for Inpatient hospital discharges and payments by DRG
Map the incumbent
Open Payments records manufacturer payments to clinicians — consulting, speaking, food and beverage, research — by manufacturer and by clinician, annually. In a competitive category this is the closest thing to a published relationship map for the incumbent. High-volume clinicians with heavy competitor payment history need a different approach than high-volume clinicians with none.
Check the capacity constraint
HCRIS occupancy and bed data indicate whether the account has physical room to grow the procedure. A high-volume, fully occupied facility is a different sale from a high-volume facility with capacity — throughput versus expansion.
What to take away
- Bed count is a weak proxy; DRG volume is a direct measure.
- Physician utilization names the individuals inside the account.
- Open Payments exposes the incumbent's relationship map.
- Capacity determines whether the pitch is throughput or expansion.
Put this to work
RepVector assembles this for a named market in one query
Describe the market and the offering. The datasets above are selected, resolved to your geography, pulled, scored, and returned as a ranked list with every figure sourced.
Related guides
- Using NPI data for sales targeting — what NPPES can and cannot tell you
NPPES is the best free denominator in healthcare sales — and useless on its own. Here is what to join it to.
- HCRIS hospital cost reports: reading a hospital's financial position before you pitch it
Every Medicare-certified hospital files an audited annual cost report. It is public, and it tells you who can buy.
- How to build a healthcare territory plan you can defend
Size the universe, rank it, and set quota against a denominator instead of last year's number plus ten percent.