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:

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

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.

 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.

 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%.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Articles

Preserving patient centricity in digital healthcare environments

Medication access solutions should be curated to the specific needs of the medication and patients themselves. Read more about medication access, affordability and adherence capabilities in the CoverMyMeds 

Shawn Seamans
Chief Commercial Officer
CoverMyMeds

No medication access journey is like another. They can vary as much as the individuals seeking their medication, which is why patients need timely answers to access, afford and adhere to their prescribed medications.

Intervention points along the patient journey should provide cohesive support when and where it’s needed most. Through solutions that put patients first, CoverMyMeds is an expert in solving medication access challenges, no matter when or how they surface.

By combining technology and human intervention, CoverMyMeds can help patients achieve better outcomes, even with complex medications.

Overcoming access barriers and reducing time to therapy

Approximately 27% of prescription abandonment can be attributed to access challenges.

 Solutions that proactively help patients overcome these challenges can have a significant impact on health outcomes. They could also impact a significant number of patients: 1 in 4 said they experienced medication delays due to prior authorization (PA).

Technology-driven solutions, elevated by expert human intervention, can help navigate complex medication access journeys. End-to-end visibility can further help providers, pharmacists and case managers find efficiencies by staying electronically informed on processes such as PA and benefits verification through a centralized platform. Through these efficiencies, patients have received their therapy 



Though not all medications require complex hub or specialty support, patients living with chronic conditions are often juggling multiple prescriptions, each with its own set of access challenges. Even a single PA request can delay medication access by days and affect patients’ health outcomes and livelihood.

As a leader in prior authorization (PA), CoverMyMeds simplifies the PA process and provides in-workflow PA efficiencies to our provider and pharmacy networks for sponsored brands. In some cases, with enhanced ePA support, increased PA request submission led to nearly double the number of PA requests approved by the health plan.

In 2021 alone, CoverMyMeds helped patients access their medicine more than 67 million times.

Expanding available affordability options

When faced with unexpected medication expenses, patients often have to make difficult decisions. In fact, last year, 51% of patients sacrificed their medications to pay for essential items like bills.

Patients shouldn’t have to choose between life essentials and medications when both are important for a healthier life. And as prescription costs rise, so does abandonment: When a new prescription costs $125 or more, 46% of patients never pick it up.

Electronic, integrated solutions can connect eligible patients with pharma-sponsored programs. These programs, like copay and patient assistance, can help lower out-of-pocket medication costs.

Affordability solutions can help brands meet various patient population needs. Programs can include technology support for automatic copay integration, patient support program enrollment and some rejected prescriptions. 

Optimized with data, analytics and an extensive pharmacy network, affordability solutions through CoverMyMeds saved patients a collective $6 billion on their medications in the last year.

Specialized solutions to overcome adherence barriers

Many factors can affect medication adherence, as each patient’s experience and needs are unique. Managing adverse side effects from certain medications is one such factor in adherence. In fact, 1 in 5 cancer patients surveyed blamed unpleasant side effects for not taking their medications as prescribed.



Adherence is a barrier that often takes dedicated specialists to break through. These team members work with patients on a human level through individual challenges. Ideal solutions connect patients with clinical educators who have specialized therapeutic knowledge and who can offer support for their specific treatment plan and condition.

Patients receiving this kind of support have seen a 25% increase in adherence and 31 more days on therapy.

Through specialized adherence support CoverMyMeds prevented more than 9 million prescriptions from being abandoned in 2021.

Solutions to help patients access, afford and adhere to their medications for healthier lives



CoverMyMeds’ extensive suite of solutions allows brands to customize a plan to support patients at all points of their medication access journeys. Powered by technology, our solutions can help brands support patients navigating unique paths to access, afford and adhere to their prescribed medications. Our solutions have supported over 650 brands across 95% of therapeutic areas, inclusive of various lifecycle stages and distribution models.

By supporting brands through their individual challenges, we can help even more patients access the medicine they rely on to feel better. Read more in our 

IQVIA Medicine Use and Spending in the US: A Review of 2016 and Outlook to 2021

https://insights.covermymeds.com/research-and-analysis/specialty-therapy/ms-patient-access-white-paper

https://www.ama-assn.org/system/files/prior-authorization-survey.pdf

https://commercialization.covermymeds.com/?utm_medium=publications&utm_source=drugchannels&utm_campaign=emerging-commercialization-brandplanningcommcart-06-17-2022&utm_content=commcart%20-drugchannels_brandplanningcommcart

https://www.iqvia.com/-/media/iqvia/pdfs/institute-reports/the-use-of-medicines-in-the-us-2022/iqvia-institute-the-use-of-medicines-in-the-us-2022.pdf

CoverMyMeds Oncology Patient Survey, 2022
