EnvoyHealth adds to its patient-support IT platform

EnvoyHealth, the independently operated subsidiary of leading specialty pharmacy, Diplomat, has added partnerships with two web-based services in the past month. Combined, the services promise to improve speed to therapy and adherence to drug regimens, in the near term, and a higher degree of patient satisfaction with therapy, especially in chronic conditions, in the longer term. Envoy itself is a patient hub, providing manufacturers a way to offer benefit verification, prior authorization and other patient support tasks to healthcare providers, and to patients directly.

The latest partnership is with HelpAround, a “mobile concierge platform” that provides messaging capabilities between EnvoyHealth and patients, as well as community-building features for rare diseases (Envoy has an exclusive relationship with HelpAround in the rare disease space). Behind the mobile phone app are a variety of behavioral analysis resources, which enable the app to tailor interventions or interactions based on the patient’s experience. Another innovative feature is tools and resources for creating a community of patients around a disease and its therapy; HelpAround can work with patient advocacy groups to provide them the community-building platform, or with manufacturer sponsors (through Envoy) to create these communities. The community-building includes a patient matching service, so that newly diagnosed patients can interact with more experienced patients going through the same therapy; Yishai Knobel, HelpAround founder and CEO, likens it to "Tinder for healthcare," drawing an analogy with that dating app.

In early March, Envoy announced a similar arrangement with Mango Health, another mobile app, but one geared toward refill reminders, management of appointments and other medical interactions, diets and wellness, all with some gamification features. Mango Health is also partnered with a variety of pharmacy benefit managers and health systems.

For its part, EnvoyHealth has an affiliate program under which these and other partnerships are organized. “We want to be where patients are in their lives, and increasingly, that means mobile interactions,” notes Derek Cothran, EnvoyHealth SVP. The affiliation program enables Envoy to bring its affiliates to the attention of sponsoring manufacturers, who can then opt to support the mobile patient engagement tools.

EnvoyHealth will be showcasing these relationships while exhibiting at the upcoming Asembia Specialty Pharmacy Summit (Las Vegas, Apr. 29-May 2).