Tell us a little bit more about your role.
In 2021, MMIT debuted the Access Advisor role to provide additional expertise to our clients who have questions about either their data or the broader market access landscape. Many clients who have licensed our services need a dedicated advisor who can serve as a liaison to help them interpret the data and determine next steps.
As team lead, I support all of MMIT’s Access Advisors. I meet with them and walk through their client portfolios, helping out when needed. I’ve also taken on responsibilities in terms of scoping new offerings for the team. Along with my own clients, I also offer support to any client who does not currently have an assigned advisor. When the commercial team needs an Access Advisor to provide support on an enablement call, I serve on those accounts as well.
How did you join the company? What in your background brought you to pharma?
I took a roundabout pathway to market access, which I learned is pretty common in this field! I started college as a molecular biology major, but changed course halfway through and graduated with a BS in Marketing. My concentration was in Entertainment, so all of my internships were with record labels. After a couple of months trying to break into the industry, I took a job with a temp agency that ultimately placed me with Zitter Health Insights.
Once I realized that the work we were doing had an actual impact on patients, I joined full-time in 2017. After MMIT acquired Zitter, I was part of the group that is now our PAR Insights team and in 2021, I joined the Enterprise Access and Data Expertise (EADE) team as an Access Advisor.
While I love doing a deep dive into policy updates, I also really enjoy having the opportunity to speak directly with our clients and hear their concerns. In this role, I’ve found a happy medium between my inner Excel data geek and my client service side. I love providing the education clients need to better understand their data, and I love watching that light bulb go off when they realize what they can accomplish with our datasets.
What does your day-to-day usually look like?
Each day is different from the last! The constant change is one of my favorite aspects of this role, because I never know what I’m going to encounter. I might have a full day of client calls, or spend the day neck-deep in an Excel file looking for very specific attribute changes. I often have internal calls with other Access Advisors and other teams at MMIT, from the clinical side of the business to the commercial side. We get the opportunity to touch so many different products and understand how all of this data is impacting our clients.
What are some of the larger projects you’re working on?
One of my clients purchases our Specialty Pharmacy data, and they want to include specialty pharmacy alignments in their Coverage Search app. As we take a document-based approach, our standard data captures only information that is included in policies. To satisfy the client’s needs, I’ve spent the last year researching these relationships with my team by manually combing through payer websites and documentation. Is this a payer’s preferred pharmacy? Is using this pharmacy mandatory? It’s been really interesting to do this kind of ancillary research that is not just about policy criteria, but the relationships between payers and their specialty pharmacies.
I’m also getting ready to do some beta testing for a new market access analytics service. I recently had the opportunity to do some demo testing of the new MMIT platform when it was in development, which was a really interesting experience. I enjoy giving our clients a voice in conversations with developers, who are naturally very product-focused. Our process is really collaborative, which helps us launch products that are specifically made for our clients, that really reflect how they will experience and engage with the data.
What are some of the common challenges of your role?
I try to remain an eternal optimist with a foundation in reality. I consider our most common challenges to really be educational opportunities. Whether we’re working with a long-standing client or a new client who is seeing our data for the first time, it’s important to make sure that they understand our data methodology.
Recently, we’ve had a few clients struggle with our document-based approach to coverage data. Our data integrity depends upon the fact that we publish exactly what the payer is publicly stating to be true. This means that if a payer isn’t publishing a formulary document in the public domain, it can be very frustrating for clients who have anecdotal knowledge that their drug is being covered.
Of course, at the end of the day, a payer can say whatever they want. They can tell reps that they are going to add your drug to the formulary and that your drug will be preferred, but that might not be what happens in reality. At the end of the day, the document published is what the patients see too, but we do our very best to navigate these challenges.
In some instances, we will try and mitigate this issue by accepting non-standard documentation of coverage, whether that’s an email from a payer or a redacted contract. However, it can be burdensome on the client to produce these documents and provide ongoing updates. It’s important for the Access Advisors to make sure that our clients understand that we’re working toward the same goal: ensuring that the data they’re receiving is both accurate and effective.
What’s been your career highlight to date?
I would say my career highlight is the exponential growth of the Access Advisor team. We only began licensing our services fairly recently, but we’ve had enormous demand for them. Our clients definitely recognize the value we bring, which is very validating. We began by licensing our flagship services like Office Hours, Market Access Snapshot, and our Premium Launch Service, which provides clients with faster data delivery than our standard cycle. We give clients immediate clarity into their coverage wins and areas of opportunity, which can be pivotal for the success of a new brand.
Since then, we’ve also introduced Access Advisor Ad Hoc hours, which is a consultative service. Clients have the opportunity to purchase a specific number of hours, which they can then use at their discretion whenever they need help. We’ve seen a lot of success with that, as well as with the number of clients licensing our Prior Authorization PA/Medical Exception Form solution. While I’m certainly not the only one responsible for this growth, as a team lead, I am very proud of all we’ve achieved together.
Which company principle resonates most with you?
First of all, I love the fact that Norstella has these principles, as they resonate so well with so many people. The introduction of peer-to-peer recognitions on our intranet has been one of my favorite internal developments this past year. It’s nice to have the opportunity to give and receive points, but it’s even better to see colleagues recognizing each other for their work. It give me a little window into how my peers perceive the principles and how they celebrate their colleagues for meeting them.
The principle I try to embody the most would be kindness, empathy, and grace. That one is really important, especially for those of us in client-facing roles. Our clients are sometimes going to be upset, or stressed; they’re going to have bad days. They may be misinterpreting the data, and need more education, or they may want a document to be updated last week. What matters the most is the response they receive from us. We strive to always meet them with kindness, empathy, and grace, regardless of the nature of the request.
What would you tell someone just starting their career with MMIT?
Speaking of empathy, I think it’s also important to extend that kind of grace to yourself. It can be daunting to join a company like this, as market access is its own particular niche. I tell new hires to take a breath and give themselves some time to process the fact that they’re learning so many complex systems, processes, and nuanced terminology all at once.
I also advise new hires to ask lots of questions. Never be afraid to ask, as it’s always a better idea to ask the question than to assume you know the answer. Asking questions is really a knowledge-sharing opportunity, because you’re rarely the only one who is wondering what the answer might be. I think it’s remarkable that we’ve built a community in EADE that is so welcoming and open. We encourage everyone to ask questions, because realistically, the only way you learn is if you ask.
What do you like most about working at MMIT?
We have a great sense of community, even though this is a completely remote role. One of our team members created a channel on our Teams group for sharing photos from our lives. One of our Access Advisors recently became a parent this year, and another got engaged, so we celebrated them after those announcements. We talk about life and not just work: what we’re reading and watching, what we did over the weekend, all kinds of topics.
What do you like to do outside of work?
I grew up swimming competitively, and practices and meets were my entire life. In college, I took a break from swimming and began riding horses, which I absolutely loved. I got back into riding about three years ago, and a couple of years ago, I bought a horse. His name is Euro, and now he is my entire life!
Having my own horse has been a lifelong dream, and I’m so happy that I made it a reality. I board him about 20 minutes from the Yardley office, which gives me the chance to come into the office a few times a week to have face-to-face time with everyone. I spend a lot of time riding and training every week, and while we’re currently rehabbing an injury, we hope to compete this summer!
