Preserving patient centricity in digital healthcare environments

Shawn Seamans
Chief Commercial Officer
CoverMyMeds

In the healthcare technology space, every task automated and every workflow improved is a reason to celebrate. However, the true measure of success is not in the care team hours saved or even the improvement in the number of medications reaching patients, it lies in improving people’s lives.

Moving the needle in medication access means hearing fewer sentiments like the ones we hear so often interviewing patients about their healthcare journeys:

“It became a fog to me.”

“It’s very scary right now.”

“I felt threatened.”

“It’s increased stress and worry.”

“I feel like I’ve been through the fire.”

“It’s hard for me to understand.”

The emotional and mental weight of a diagnosis itself, compounded with the stress of paying for treatment and learning to navigate and understand the healthcare system, is a malady that technology can’t treat. This is why it’s critical that medication access solutions are built with patient centricity at their core. Every efficiency found allows care teams to better address the person at the heart of the patient on the screen.

At CoverMyMeds, we lead with patient centricity as we help solve healthcare’s complex challenges. In doing so, we’ve connected one million patients to support services, spanning 90% of therapeutic areas and 650 biopharma brands — including 50+ oncology therapies. Below, we’ll detail how we do it.

Deliver comprehensive support at every stage of the journey

Every patient medication access journey is unique, especially when complex medications are involved. Because each journey has varying directions, U-turns and speed bumps, we ensure patients and care teams have support in the right place at the right time. Solutions should span from diagnosis to adherence and beyond, with transparency for all involved. With the technology-driven digital support for many areas of patient support services needed in the specialty space, we help care teams find more time to address individual circumstances affecting each person receiving treatment.

Connect with care teams as their trusted partner

Care teams balance many tasks at once, and even those executed in a digital space can be time consuming since they’re often looking in multiple locations for information.¹ Ideal hub solutions electronically connect providers to integrated patient support services in a centralized location. This allows care teams to execute BI/BV, start patient support service enrollment and manage PA in one location. More than a third of providers reported having less face-to-face time with patients due to PA management — during which meaningful conversations about affordability, access or social circumstances could occur.² Led by technology and supported through expert human intervention, CoverMyMeds’ solutions meet care teams in their workflow to improve visibility and support. Through this support, care teams can help accelerate patient access to their therapies by as much as 34%.³

Assist as many patients as possible to start and stay on prescribed therapy

Even in the most sophisticated specialty practices, patients are often left navigating much of their own care, a task that can add weight to the burden of managing a complex condition. In a recent survey, 82% of patients reported spending at least an hour on the phone coordinating care for specialty therapies.⁴

Though most patients now report being able to reach care teams through patient portals and electronic means, care and medication access management should not be on their daily to-do list, especially when managing symptoms and integrating a complex condition into their everyday life. Technology should help reduce time to therapy and medication access barriers so patients’ care team interactions can have a greater impact on their quality of life. Support services such as education and symptom management can also make a difference for patient adherence. Patients receiving this support from clinical experts experienced a 25 percent increase in therapy adherence and spent 31 more days on therapy.⁵

By keeping individual people – navigating incredibly difficult diagnosis – receiving treatment at the center of solutions, care teams can address the heart of the matter surrounding condition treatment. This can help bring patients through their journey that may have begun with fear, stress and frustration, but can now find relief and change their sentiments.

“I’m the six-million dollar man.”

“Now, I’m learning how to live.”

“I could breathe again.”

“I don’t want anyone to give up.”

“It was an amazing moment.”

These real quotes from real people represent the power of patient centricity in an increasingly digital healthcare ecosystem.

Discover more about the impact of CoverMyMeds and how we specialize in patient access to specialty medication.

References

1. CoverMyMeds nurse survey, 2019
2. CoverMyMeds provider survey, 2020
3. CoverMyMeds data on file, 2021
4. CoverMyMeds patient survey, 2019
5. Symphony Health Analytics, 2016