Enhancing Patient Services: The Crucial Role of Provider Satisfaction

Leading manufacturers recognize that to ensure an optimal patient experience, you need to improve the experience for healthcare providers (HCP).  

That was one of several insights revealed in the 2024 Patient Services Report, an annual survey that helps readers keep in sync with the evolving needs, challenges, and priorities of the industry’s leading manufacturers.  

Within the survey, manufacturers were asked to rank their top business objectives for the next 18 months. Notably, respondents who currently work with CareMetx rated “increasing provider satisfaction” higher than the overall participant pool. These results underscore the critical role that providers play in ensuring a positive experience and a successful care journey for patients on specialty therapeutics. The findings also indicate that CareMetx and the manufacturers who partner with us understand that improving provider satisfaction is an integral part of improving the patient journey. 

To view all survey results, download the 2024 Patient Services Report: Revealing Manufacturer Priorities: Patients Naturally Take Center Stage

Rapid Innovation in Healthcare: A Double-Edged Sword for Providers Navigating Specialty Therapy Complexities 

The dynamics of the healthcare environment greatly impact an HCP’s ability to support patients on specialty therapies. From the sequencing of the genome to the discovery of new techniques for editing genes, many innovations are driving drug discovery advancements. The rapid rise in computing power only accelerates these developments, allowing manufacturers to develop novel therapies, faster than ever.  

The net result is that a much larger percentage of prescribed therapies are specialty drugs that are more complex to administer, with treatment regimens that are more difficult for the patient to understand and adhere to. If the therapy is a self-injectable for example, emotional barriers can further compound this complexity. And if the drug is covered as a medical benefit (as opposed to a pharmacy benefit), the care journey can become more complicated and require more intervention by the provider.  Even when the healthcare provider has strong conviction about a therapy’s efficacy, these realities may create hurdles to initiating the prescription.  

At the same time, HCPs are dealing with many other obstacles in this volatile healthcare landscape. A shortage of talent creates constraints at a time when the industry is grappling with a major imbalance between provider supply and patient demand, while changing payer policies increase reimbursement pressures.     

In this environment, most providers expect strong manufacturer support to help patients initiate and adhere to complex therapies and achieve successful health outcomes, especially in challenging therapeutic areas. In turn, manufacturers are looking to their Hub vendors to offer services that improve the provider’s experience and satisfaction.  

How Can Hubs Set Providers Up for Success? 

Proactive manufacturers recognize that an effective patient services program—supported by a best-in-class digital Hub—can instill greater confidence among providers who view a novel therapy as the optimal clinical option for their patients. In particular, these manufacturers expect their Hub vendor to provide robust capabilities that support three key activities that impact the provider’s experience.  

• Patient Enrollment: Initiating therapy starts with enrolling in the manufacturer’s drug program, which the provider’s staff often facilitates. Manufacturers expect a Hub to offer multiple, convenient channels for patient enrollment and consent capture, reducing work for the provider’s staff and speeding the process. 
• Benefit Verification: While patients need accurate information about their out-of-pocket (OOP) exposure, HCPs need assurance the therapy will be properly reimbursed. In buy-and-bill situations, benefit verification is especially vital to reducing financial risk. When the Hub facilitates fast, accurate benefit verification results in a standardized, easy-to-read format, providers are more satisfied with the experience and may feel more comfortable prescribing the therapy. 
• Prior Authorization: To avoid delays, providers need to quickly determine if the payer requires prior authorization for the drug. The faster and easier the Hub makes this step, the better the provider’s experience—and the faster the patient can begin realizing the benefits of a therapy.  

Integration is Key    

Helping patients start therapy involves many administrative tasks for provider office staff members who are already overburdened. When that process requires working with disparate systems that aren’t part of the office’s normal workflow, it makes therapy initiation more cumbersome and frustrating for the HCP and their staff.  

That’s why manufacturers increasingly desire their Hubs to integrate activities like enrollment, benefit verification, and prior authorization checks into the provider’s current workflow, integrating the necessary systems and applications.   

Though integration with the large number of EHRs and ancillary patient management systems is a significant effort, CareMetx also recognizes it’s an essential commitment. Beyond the benefits of delivering accurate, timely data that supports efficient enrollment and speedy initiation, integrating with the provider’s workflow can extend to other applications that facilitate patient care delivery, including patient check-in, revenue cycle management, financial assistance, and infusion management systems. For more information, check out our recent blog, Fast-Track Therapy Adoption: The Power of Hub/ Tech Vendor Relationships.  

The 2024 Patient Services Report explores provider experience and many other trends that are impacting how manufacturers approach their patient services programs and what they expect from a Hub provider. Download the report to glean insights on the evolving landscape for specialty drug patient services.