Josh discusses challenges manufacturers may face when outsourcing patient support programs. He outlines a process that smoothly transitions hubs and minimizes disruptions for patients and healthcare providers.
To learn more, download the 3-step guide to patient hub transitions.
Read on for Josh’s insights.
Best Practices for Successfully Transitioning a Patient Services Hub
By Josh Marsh, Vice President and General Manager, Sonexus™ Access and Patient Support, Cardinal Health
But with the right mix of talent and technology, change doesn’t have to be disruptive. In fact, transitioning programs could positively affect speed-to-therapy, adherence, and more while being virtually undetectable to patients and other stakeholders. The only thing they might notice is a better experience.
After transitioning more than 55 products over the past four years, the Cardinal Health Sonexus™ Access and Patient Support team has designed a “lift and shift” approach that puts patients first and keeps programs stable as they move from incumbent hubs to ours.
INITIATE AN RFP AFTER INITIAL SIGNS OF MISMATCH
The most common and straightforward reason we see pharmaceutical companies initiate a transition is due to compliance, followed by more nuanced yet measurable reasons like patient disruptions, operational inefficiencies, and suboptimal performance.
To ensure patients get the hub experience they deserve, watch out for these red flags:
- Overreliance on manual methods: Burdensome workflows impact how patients and others interact with the hub. They can also waste money and FTE resources.
- Poor performance: If you’re seeing no improvements in speed-to-therapy, therapy starts, and call performance, it could mean the patient experience requires a rethink.
- Reverification hiring sprees: An effective hub embraces a balance of technology and talent such that it wouldn’t need to hire high volumes of FTEs ahead of reverification season—it can redeploy much of that spending toward initiatives that focus on patients.
- Poor communication and management: Ineffective account management leads to patient disruptions, operational strain, and lack of actionable insights back to the brand.
TIME IT RIGHT FOR MINIMAL DISRUPTION
Hub transitions can take place at any time. In fact, we’ve facilitated them at every point throughout the year. For the best patient experience, we recommend initiating the RFP process in late summer or early fall so the transition is completed during a relatively stable part of the year.
Transitions take six to nine months, or less in some cases. Here’s a sample timeline structured to minimize patient disruptions:
- September: Open the RFP
- October: Select a new hub provider
- November to December: Kick off the hub transition project plan
- January to March: Complete reverification season
- April to June: Finalize hub transition
We orchestrate program transitions so that patients, healthcare providers, and brands are taken care of end-to-end.
We’ve optimized our playbook with a dedicated project team experienced in transitions who are equipped with a strong project plan and the right resources to get going immediately. We’ve executed transitions so often that we have become familiar with competitors’ datasets, and can migrate them swiftly and seamlessly for minimal to no impact on patient records or experiences.
We invest in our people through learning and development to shape them into high-performing leaders who care and are committed. This extends from staff, such as case managers, to platform specialists for stakeholder continuity. We’re proud to maintain a year-over-year retention rate of 85% for frontline staff.
We optimize our technology. Our product roadmap innovates to keep up with in-demand trends that improve the patient experience, such as self-service and chat.
When all our efforts come together, it looks something like this: The incumbent hub ends at 8 p.m. Friday, and by Monday morning, everything is transitioned—technology, call center, telephony, records, etc. A patient can call in and talk with someone fully onboarded and educated on both the program and their individual record so that they experience the same—or often better—level of service.
WE’RE HERE TO HELP WHEN IT’S TIME TO SWITCH
The decision to change hubs requires urgency but not haste. Incumbent hubs may need to work out issues, especially in the first year post-launch. Plus, in our experience, a swift transition can impact the patient experience.
While assessing the hub in that "honeymoon period," you should be:
- Working with the hub vendor to ensure the team is well trained and equipped to service patients and other stakeholders.
- Pushing for a digital transformation roadmap that supports the patient experience.
- Providing regular feedback and opportunities to improve through call calibration and case audits.
Download our 3-step guide to patient hub transitions.
The content of Sponsored Posts does not necessarily reflect the views of HMP Omnimedia, LLC, Drug Channels Institute, its parent company, or any of its employees. To find out how you can publish a guest post on Drug Channels, please contact Paula Fein (paula@DrugChannels.net).
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