It’s no surprise to pharma brands that the specialty drug market is rife with conversion and payer challenges. It can feel like there are so many hurdles to ensuring that patients can access clinically appropriate therapy. In fact, in a recent survey, 84% of providers reported some difficulties starting patients on specialty medications. And even once they do start treatment, there’s no guarantee patients will stay on treatment, even if it’s working.
Abandonment and discontinuation are tricky problems to solve, in part because there hasn’t been the breadth and depth of data needed to effectively identify causes—until now.
BrightInsight recently partnered with Claritas Rx to publish a new white paper, Abandonment and discontinuation variation in specialty drugs. In it, we undertook a data deep dive, using their proprietary methods for collecting data from specialty pharmacies to uncover invaluable insights on the challenges patients face in starting and continuing treatment. This includes a first-of-its-kind comparison of conversion rates across specialty drug brands.
In the white paper, we look broadly at data points like fill rate and time to fill across both life-saving and non life-saving treatments before defining four key phases of the patient journey for specialty therapies:
At the enrollment stage, the healthcare provider has sent the prescription to the pharmacy, but prior authorization has not been initiated. Patients may fail to fill prescriptions for a variety of reasons.
Next, the payer initiates the prior authorization process. Many things can go wrong, from failure to complete prior authorization forms to denial of coverage.
Affordability can be an issue even when a therapy is covered by insurance. While there are a variety of programs to help patients secure funding for their treatments, many patients have trouble navigating this process.
Patients still face challenges after they've secured coverage and funding for their treatment.
Read the white paper today to check out the data and discover the key causes of abandonment and discontinuation. Then, learn more about how BrightInsight and Claritas Rx can help you plug the value leak for your therapies.