In the last few years, we’ve seen the preferences of healthcare providers (HCPs) and patients shift, driven by catalysts such as COVID-19, new market entrants and changes in consumer expectations in general. Patients and HCPs, now more than ever, seek technology solutions that accommodate these preferences and meet them where they are.
For life sciences organizations, this necessitates delivery of services that meet patients in their lifeflows and HCPs in their workflows. The challenge when selecting e-services is understanding which best support your unique patient and HCP populations.
To sort through and determine the best e-services options for your brand, you should first ask yourself the following questions.
1. Do these e-services meet my HCPs in their workflows?
Long before the pandemic exacerbated HCP burnout, HCPs were already burdened by rising administrative requirements and patient access challenges. In return, they sought access to immediate price transparency, prior authorization (PA) requirements and tools that streamline the therapy initiation process. COVID-19 exposed the antiquated ways of moving prescriptions and compelled many HCPs to transition to technology-enabled workflows.
As HCPs adopt new workflows, your patient support program must be armed with flexible solutions that meet them where they are. Further, these solutions should provide today’s administratively overburdened HCPs with real-time information and streamlined processes so they have the confidence their patients will be able to quickly start therapy and stay on therapy.
2. Do these e-services meet my patients in their lifeflows?
Driven by specialty drug cost share increasingly falling onto the patient, many are taking their healthcare into their own hands. As such, they seek immediate affordability information at anytime and from anywhere. The e-services you invest in should be modular in nature to meet the needs of patients’ unique disease states and levels of tech-savviness.
Tech-savvy and motivated patients will appreciate self-serve e-services, whereas less tech-savvy patients may prefer to be supported by the HCP or patient support team. Regardless, e-services should be easily accessible by all three stakeholders — whether that means an easier way to acquire consent, qualify a patient for support or kick off services via an e-prescription.
3. How will my brand be differentiated in the market?
In the last decade, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved more drugs annually on average than it did in the prior two decades, resulting in increased competition. The patient support provider and its e-services you choose should have the expertise and technology capable of differentiating your brand in the marketplace. Rather than investing in technology for the sake of touting technology-driven solutions, your program should deliver the right balance of technology and talent tailored for your patients and HCPs. Should you consider a ePAP or technology-enabled reverification program that provides better visibility for prescribers without the need for multiplying program staffing, or will a provider-initiated advanced benefit verification solution enable a patient’s coverage options at the point-of-care?
A recent Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) study showed that only 21% of physicians can accurately estimate patients’ out-of-pocket (OOP) drug costs. Supporting HCPs in this regard requires a solution that goes above and beyond the status quo. Your e-coverage solution should return digestible data that informs HCPs on comprehensive coverage information, immediate next steps and available resources.
4. Can the e-services evolve with my brand throughout its product lifecycle?
Finally, the e-services you choose should be able to evolve with patients throughout their disease progression and/or evolving lifeflows, HCPs as they adopt new workflows and the brand throughout its product lifecycle. Delivery of e-services should evolve throughout the lifecycle – a newly launched brand may need more talent- than technology-enabled solutions, but later it can be supported completely via e-services. It is critical that your patient support partner’s e-services are modular, scalable, and flexible enough to roll on and off as needed.
The AssistRx Answer
Leveraging our legacy expertise and interoperable, agnostic technology, AssistRx built our proprietary e-Support Services to best support unique product, patient and HCP needs.
We understand how automated, digital solutions help reduce therapy delays, improve patient adherence and enhance patient and HCP experiences, especially regarding patient coverage information. This is why we developed e-coverage solutions for pharmacy and medical benefit products. Our proprietary solutions, Advanced Benefit Verification (ABV) and e-Medical Benefit Verification (e-Med BV), pull real-time coverage information directly from payers/PBMs, rather than depending on predictive algorithms or test claims. Using just five patient identifiers, both return comprehensive, accurate coverage information in under 30 seconds.
Combined with our other e-Support Services, such as e-Consent, e-Prescribe, e-PA and more, we empower patients, HCPs and patient support providers with real-time solutions that accelerate patient access to therapy and crucial support services.
Further, we meet patients and HCPs where they are by integrating our e-Support Services into various access channels. Our e-Support Services can be accessed through our clients’ existing brand website, and/or our solutions, including:
- – Branded patient and HCP engagement website(s)
- – iAssist, our comprehensive specialty therapy initiation platform
- – CaseAssist, our Salesforce-powered CRM
- – CoAssist, our technology-first retail and specialty-lite access solution
Meet with us at Asembia Summit to learn what intelligent therapy initiation and patient support is truly about—with the perfect blend of technology and talent that only AssistRx can deliver.