Digital Best Practices for Communicating Drug Coverage to HCPs
Before physicians prescribe a new therapy, they need to trust that it is the most effective and appropriate treatment for an individual patient. They need education on the drug’s efficacy and safety, dosing and administration, and the clinical criteria that define eligibility. They also need to know if the drug is affordable and accessible for their patients.
Although pharma sales reps typically convey all this information to HCPs during their in-person meetings, physicians have become much more selective about the companies with which they engage. According to a recent Veeva Pulse Field Trends Report, only 45% of HCPs are accessible to biopharma companies, and half of these HCPs limit in-person meetings to three or fewer companies.
To compensate for the decline in face-to-face promotion, most manufacturers have amped up their non-personal promotion techniques, from product videos to synchronized pull-through messaging. Let’s take a look at how pharma companies are currently sharing their brands’ coverage details online.
Common Methods of Sharing Coverage Information Online
Many pharma companies rely on third-party vendors to develop a provider-facing website for their new brand, which typically houses clinical content and resources plus dosing and reimbursement information. While most sites also include brand-specific coverage information, these digital resources are not equally effective. Many manufacturers are using both aggregated and out-of-date coverage data on their brand’s website, which can negatively impact a brand’s uptake.
These are the three most common methods of communicating coverage on an HCP-facing site:
Broad Overview: Some manufacturers highlight national coverage statistics, such as the percentage of patients who can receive a prescription for a certain monthly co-pay, or the number of covered lives for Medicare plans. While these stats may have been accurate at the time of posting, this type of messaging usually relies on coverage data pulled for a specific timeframe in the past.
From the pharma company’s perspective, this method can be counter-productive, as numbers must be manually updated to reflect coverage gains after launch. As this requires multiple data pulls, manufacturers are unlikely to spend the time and money to continually update this static content. From the physicians’ perspective, the information may not be very useful, as they cannot look up the factors relevant for their geographic location.
Sales Outreach Form: Some manufacturers rely on a form-fill page on their brand website, which asks physicians to enter their name, practice details, and zip code to receive account-level brand coverage information. Typically, physicians must wait at least a week before a manufacturer’s sales reps will reach out with relevant regional coverage data.
While this method can help establish a relationship between the HCP and the sales rep, some HCPs might not want to complete the form if they’re not going to get immediate feedback. Depending on the timing of the request, the coverage data may also arrive long after the prescription decision has already been made.
Coverage Look-Up Tools: Many manufacturers partner with digital vendors or marketing agencies to build various look-up tools for their HCP-facing brand site. By purchasing coverage data (from MMIT or other providers) via a third-party agreement, these companies create tools that allow physicians to enter their zip code for area coverage information.
While this approach is well-suited to busy physicians, manufacturers need to ensure they are providing the most accurate, timely and relevant coverage information possible. A thorough data QA process, as well as experience in the utilization of APIs, is necessary to ensure data accuracy. Timeliness is also key, as monthly data feeds may not adequately reflect changing coverage information, especially as a brand gains momentum. If policy and restriction details are important for a brand, pharma companies should also ensure that their look-up tool can surface these details.
Benefits of Real-Time Coverage Data
Many manufacturers are simplifying their go-to-market strategy by working directly with a payer coverage data provider like MMIT to customize a dynamic look-up tool. This approach uses real-time coverage information, which is refreshed daily. Physicians can search by zip code or state to discover coverage and restriction details for patient plans in their area. More sophisticated tools also incorporate an NPI lookup and searchable map view, which highlights coverage by region.
With dynamic look-up tools, physicians can quickly identify the patient plans with coverage by insurer channel. Most importantly, they can also search by plan name. This level of specificity helps HCPs determine if a particular patient with XYZ health plan is covered, and with what restrictions. Physicians can see if prior authorization or step therapy is required, and can view coverage criteria, such as the number and type of steps and any required testing. By including such policy details in their tool, pharma companies can proactively educate HCPs to help ensure a smooth prescription and reimbursement process.
More sophisticated coverage look-up tools also allow manufacturers to customize and configure the search parameters, status results, and desired plan hierarchies. For example, a pharma company might want to configure different coverage statuses based on patient age group. Customizable digital tools allow a pharma company to fully align its messaging across both personal and non-personal promotional channels, ensuring consistency.
Dynamic coverage look-up tools can also show coverage for multiple products, dual benefits, and products with multiple indications. Depending on which level of data makes sense to their audience, pharma companies can also choose to pull in more granular details for a plan’s coverage, such as the formulary or medical group.
As with all things market access, timing and accuracy are essential prerequisites for successful HCP outreach.
In a competitive market, pharma companies that proactively educate physicians about the nuances of their brand’s coverage are far more likely to increase uptake. HCPs preparing to make a prescribing decision want to know every relevant detail about a brand, from applicable restrictions to testing requirements. To help more patients gain access to their therapies, manufacturers must first ensure that prescribing physicians have all the information they need to make an informed choice.
Learn how MMIT’s dynamic look-up tool, CoverageFinder, can provide HCPs with timely, accurate, and relevant coverage information on your brand’s site.
