Although survey response rates have long been viewed as a key challenge in collecting physician feedback, they are not the primary barrier. Insights gathered through a project consisting of a physician survey and panel discussion point to a broader challenge: creating interactions that physicians see as relevant, worthwhile, and respectful of their limited time. The findings suggest that pharma and medical device companies need to rethink how they ask for physicians’ input, communicate the value of participation, and demonstrate that their contributions lead to something meaningful.
The project combined quantitative survey input from 75 U.S.-based HCPs with a live panel of practicing physicians across rheumatology, transplant cardiology, pulmonology and critical care medicine, and oncology / hematology at an event, IA Ignite: Healthcare Research, in June 2026. Survey respondents were primarily MDs and DOs, with nurse practitioner (NP) and physician assistant (PA) perspectives included. Many were experienced clinicians, actively seeing patients, and regularly participating in healthcare market research.
The project design reflected a core principle of strong primary market research: Structured survey data is necessary, but it becomes more powerful when it is interpreted through real-world context, in this case the live physician discussion.
Healthcare market research has spent years trying to reduce respondent burden, often by shortening surveys. That instinct is understandable. Physicians are busy, burned out, and operating under intense clinical and administrative pressure.
However, only 9% of surveyed HCPs preferred surveys under 15 minutes. More were open to longer engagements when the topic was relevant, the expectations were clear, and the honorarium reflected the time and expertise required.
The live physician discussion reinforced this point. Physicians understand the exchange between themselves and industry. They are willing to contribute when the research is meaningful. They value learning, and they recognize that pharma and healthcare companies need input from the clinical front lines.
A practical physician perspective from the panel was clear: Give us meaningful research, be honest about the ask, do not waste our time, and compensate appropriately. Another physician noted that he would give more time, even up to 30 minutes, when the value of the topic justified the investment.
For pharma and market research teams, the implication is important. Respondent experience is about designing an engagement that feels worth the time in the first place: A bad 12-minute survey can feel longer than a good 30-minute discussion.
Survey of 75 U.S.-based HCPs fielded May/June 2026
The panel also pushed back on another common concern: the idea that physicians are simply becoming unreachable or unwilling to participate.
The reality is more nuanced. Physicians are filtering the opportunities rather than disengaging completely.
Surveyed HCPs still expressed positive attitudes toward healthcare market research. Many said they enjoy participating, believe research helps pharma understand physician needs, see research as a valuable way to share feedback, and believe it can inform real-world decisions.
That is encouraging, but it is not permission to flood the zone. Physicians are surrounded by touchpoints: sales rep visits, MSL interactions, digital content, manufacturer websites, webinars, patient education, market research invitations, screeners, portals, and emails.
Every interaction competes with clinical workload. Every invitation asks physicians to make a judgment about credibility, utility, time, and fairness. Every poorly designed screener or irrelevant survey makes the next request harder to earn.
For healthcare companies, this means engagement strategy must be designed with clinical reality in mind. More contact does not necessarily equal more influence, more trust, or better insight. Sometimes more touchpoints simply create more noise.
A major theme across IA Ignite was trust: trust in data, trust in process, trust in quality standards, trust in AI applications, and trust between healthcare companies and the audiences they need to understand. The project results made that theme tangible.
The survey showed frequent pharma touchpoints, including in-person sales rep visits, email or digital content, manufacturer websites, healthcare market research, patient education, and medical affairs interactions. The issue is clearly not whether pharma is reaching physicians but what those interactions deliver.
The “Pharma Rep Scorecard” from the session highlighted a credibility gap. Physicians were more likely to say recent rep interactions provided clinically relevant information or respected time and workflow than to say those interactions were balanced, unbiased, or delivered information not easily found elsewhere.
Survey of 75 U.S.-based HCPs fielded May/June 2026
Reps, medical affairs, digital content, and market research all still matter, but each channel has to earn trust by delivering information that is practical, balanced, evidence-based, and useful in real clinical decision-making.
Physicians are asking for information that helps them practice medicine rather than simply more information.
The survey showed demand for more real-world evidence and practical implementation guidance. It also suggested that pharma companies may underestimate the complexity of the data physicians are asked to interpret.
Healthcare decision-making is rarely clean or linear. Physicians are balancing clinical evidence, payer realities, patient preferences, comorbidities, access barriers, workflow constraints, and uncertainty. Research and engagement that ignore that complexity risk producing answers that are technically complete but commercially underpowered.
This is where disciplined primary market research (PMR) becomes especially valuable.
Strong PMR does not simply ask what physicians think: It fills the gap between collecting answers and generating insights. PMR explores why they think it, how they make trade-offs, what context changes their decisions, where friction exists, and what would make information more actionable. It connects stated preferences to clinical reality. It helps organizations understand not just the message they want to send but also the environment into which that message lands.
The panel’s implications extend beyond survey design. They apply broadly to healthcare engagement strategy, brand planning, medical strategy, customer experience, market access, professional education, and evidence communication.
Pharma and medical device companies should consider five practical shifts:
These shifts are central to data quality, respondent trust, and the ability to generate insights that can actually guide business decisions.
At Beghou, our PMR work sits at the intersection of healthcare strategy, customer insight, data analytics, and commercial decision-making. We bring the “why” to the “what.” We help pharma and medical device clients understand what customers think, why they behave the way they do, and how those insights should shape brand, portfolio, field, and engagement strategy.
The physician feedback loop discussed at IA Ignite reflects exactly the kind of challenge PMR is built to solve.
It is not enough to know that physicians are busy. The more useful questions are:
Those questions require more than access to respondents. They require thoughtful research design, healthcare context, strong moderation, careful synthesis, and the ability to translate findings into practical commercial action, which is where PMR plays an important role.
The next era of HCP engagement will be won by organizations that listen better.
Physicians are telling the industry they are still open to engagement. They understand the exchange, want to learn, and are willing to contribute. But they expect the interaction to be relevant, respectful, credible, and fairly compensated.
For pharma and medical device companies, that is useful feedback to understand that the door is still open, but the future physician feedback loop will require smarter questions, better-designed research, more practical evidence, more honest value exchange, and a stronger commitment to closing the loop with the clinicians whose input helps shape better healthcare decisions.