How Do Market Access Leaders View the Future of Patient Services?

Market access leaders play a crucial role in the pharmaceutical industry by ensuring that patients can access and afford medications. Following extensive research and development, as a manufacturer gets ready to launch a new drug, the work of the market access team becomes vital for the drug's successful adoption and overall success.

One key goal of the 2024 Patient Services Survey was to understand the views of current market access professionals. The survey is part of an annual effort to assess how manufacturers' needs, challenges, and priorities are evolving in the dynamic healthcare market.

The survey results reveal the future trends that market access leaders anticipate for the patient services sector, what they expect from a patient-focused hub partner, and the key performance metrics they use to select the most suitable hub to support their drug programs.

(For detailed survey results and analysis, download the 2024 Patient Services Report: Revealing Manufacturer Priorities: Patients Naturally Take Center Stage.)

Prioritizing Patient-Centric Care

The Patient Services Survey investigated the key business objectives for today’s specialty manufacturers. Despite varying goals tied to specific roles, a common priority emerged: patient-focused objectives were deemed most important over an 18-month period. This was particularly evident among market access participants, who emphasized enhancing adherence to prescribed therapies and improving support throughout the care journey as their top priorities—both vital for positive health outcomes.

Market access leaders are aware that as therapies become more complex—transitioning from small molecule drugs to advanced treatments like biologics, cell and gene therapies, and immunotherapies—patients require increased support to start, continue, and benefit from medications. While ensuring these drugs are accessible and affordable is a key goal for these teams, it is not their only focus. Given the myriad factors that influence health outcomes and, consequently, a drug's market success, market access leaders are adopting a more comprehensive approach.

Interestingly, reducing the impact of copay accumulators and maximizers ranked as the least important objective among market access survey respondents. This may be because other departments within the organization, such as customer service, procurement, and patient services, are more directly involved in addressing financial-related challenges, where this objective was seen as a higher priority.

Market Access Leaders Identify the Most Critical Trends

The 2024 Patient Services Survey asked participants to identify trends that will significantly affect their ability to deliver patient services in the near term. Two-thirds of market access participants anticipate that the expansion of specialty pharmacies and the growing influence of pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs) will highly impact patient services. This reflects the market access leaders' crucial role in managing drug access complexities within the evolving healthcare landscape.

Additionally, two-thirds of market access respondents believe that the increasing complexity of therapies, more personalized patient care journeys, and a greater emphasis on social determinants of health (SDOH) will have a moderate impact on their ability to provide effective patient services. Most also predict that advancements in digital and healthcare delivery technologies will have a moderate to high impact on patient services in the next 18 months. These insights highlight the need for patient services programs that are not only comprehensive and holistic but also extend beyond merely enhancing accessibility and affordability.

What Do Market Access Leaders Want in a Hub Partner?

When seeking a best-in-class hub partner to drive their patient services programs, market access leaders play a crucial role in the evaluation and selection process. Though this initiative is typically a cross-functional effort, one-third of market access survey participants identified themselves as the primary decision-maker.

Among the many criteria that factor into this crucial decision, market access professionals see two patient-focused attributes as top priorities: comprehensive patient services solutions, and alignment with the patient’s care journey. These leaders are keenly aware that a specialty drug’s success—both at launch and ongoing—demands a complete solution that addresses the patient’s unique needs and barriers and provides the full range of support they need at each milestone in their care journey.

Given that market access leaders are highly invested in ensuring a drug is accessible and affordable, it’s not surprising that one of the top metrics of performance they use to evaluate a hub is the vendor’s success in connecting patients to financial assistance options. They also expect a hub partner to demonstrate strong success in clearing benefits (which paves the way for patients to initiate a new medication sooner), along with a high rate of adherence and good patient engagement. These performance metrics speak directly to the hub’s effectiveness in helping patients start and stay on therapy, improving the odds of achieving the best possible outcomes.

The 2024 Patient Services Report further explores how the hub selection process is evolving, and recommends key questions to ask a hub during the evaluation process to accurately assess its patient services capabilities. The report also provides valuable insights on five key themes uncovered during the research, presenting an interesting picture of the future of patient services.

Download the 2024 Patient Services Report to unlock insights on how the patient services field is evolving and where it’s headed.