Pharmaceutical vice presidents, executive directors, brand leads, marketing leads, and commercial leads:
The healthcare marketplace is rapidly evolving, and broadest data insights are key to staying relevant with current trends and responsive decision-making, let alone being ahead of the curve. For pharmaceutical and life sciences companies, this means keeping up with changes in:
Distribution and dispensing channels
Ways prescribers obtain current disease and brand product information
Payer coverage and reimbursement
Up-to-date information about who is prescribing
Add rapidly shifting technology platforms, increased cost pressures on all stakeholders, and the continued increase of new competitive products to the list above, many companies are looking for new insights and solutions.
Traditional data sources for pharmaceutical product utilization, including specific prescriber identification and National Provider Identifier (NPI)–level detail, have significant gaps and create blind spots for pharmaceutical companies. As new disruptive entities (eg, online pharmacies, retail clinics, other nontraditional convenient solutions) have entered the market, the traditional datasets, while still directional, leave even more gaps.
Do I Know What I Don’t Know?
Sophisticated brand leads are asking that question. Many know they have blind spots and significant gaps but do not necessarily know how to go about diagnosing the problem fully, and thus finding a solution is out of reach.
For pharmaceutical companies, data is typically obtained through syndicated data sources, contracts with specialty pharmacies, group purchasing organizations, wholesalers, distributors, and other similar data sources. The data capture rate can typically range up to 70% and has gaps in certain markets, sites of care, or sites of dispensing. Marrying different data sources into a cohesive set of insights, tokenizing the data to follow the patient, and cutting through the fog of different fields and terms across various entities present additional challenges.
These data sources function within certain ecosystems and rely on contracts, relationships, and points of contact to collect the data and then make sense of it. Many pharmacy channel brands have blind spots that may include:
867 data that shows who is purchasing the product but does not always map to the physician level
Noncontracted pharmacies, which in open networks can mean a gap of 10% to 30% or more of prescription volume. With many health systems having their own pharmacies, companies typically need to contract with specialized aggregators or networks or have the expensive proposition of contracting with a large number of relatively low-volume pharmacies.
Noncontracted payer datasets or limited datasets not mapped to physician NPI
Physician target lists based on projected future volume and skew forecasting, particularly at a local and regional level
Hub data that generally only includes prescribers and patients that contact the hub and, in many cases, does not carefully curate the data in a standardized way that makes it usable for insights or decision-making
New channels that were not prevalent 3 to 5 years ago (online pharmacies, supermarket clinics, etc)
These blind spots make it difficult to examine the impact of several important components for brand success and can lead to the following problems:
Dispensing network model decision-making and which pharmacies to contract with
Where to deploy sales representatives and alignment for incentive comp purchasing
Missed sales due to an underrepresentation of data and no deployment of in-person or nonpersonal promotion
A lack of awareness around friction in the patient journey, including at the point of prescribing or point of dispensing
Over-indexing on data points that result in focusing too much in the wrong areas
Then There’s Rxs in the Switch
Companies are now increasingly becoming aware of “the switch” as communication infrastructure that sits behind scenes nested between a provider’s e-prescribing system, pharmacy benefit manager and payer interfaces, and the pharmacy. The power of the switch is that it exists irrespective of any single entity and records every prescription transaction at the pharmacy (with a few small exceptions).
During the switch, insights into almost every prescription down to the NPI level and showing specific reasons for abandonment or rejection are visible. Insights into this data shine a light on the blind spots for pharmacy benefit products. This data is not so much a substitute as it is a complement to existing data sources and can help fill in the blanks.
Realizing Improved Data Streams and Rx Fulfillment Requires Strategy and Technology
Having the data itself is not enough. To make the data truly actionable of value requires not only understanding it but also putting it in the right context and having the right strategic and clinical knowledge to make decisions that can accelerate brand growth and close patient care gaps.
Our Rapid Access Messaging Platform, RAMP-UP®, uses the only integrated health data platform to deliver hyper-targeted messaging. Components include rapid data insights, near-real-time dashboards, interconnectivity to industry data and other programs, and AI-targeting applications for prescribers and patients.
RxRecovery™ is an AI and automated real-time Rx recovery solution that increases Rx fulfillment by identifying appropriate patients who may qualify for alternative coverage options. It is proven to help overcome Rx rejections and abandonment by converting unfulfilled to dispensed Rxs through federal anti-kickback compliant support.
Aventria brings together the best of data insights capabilities, in-depth industry and clinical knowledge, and problem-solving to help you accelerate brand growth with increased reach, engagement, and behavior change.
To learn more, please reach out to:
Dave Dierk, Co-President, 30-year sales and marketing thought leader in pharmaceutical diagnostics, biomedical, long-term care, managed care, employer, and pharmacy communications, at dave.dierk@aventriahealth.com.
Heather Collins, VP, Account Services and Innovations, 17+ years of experience in new and emerging technologies within healthcare and managed markets, including EHR solutions, mobile applications, user experience, content management systems, search engine optimization, and brand identity, at heather.collins@aventriahealth.com.
Making a difference in patient care by helping patients, providers, and payers collaborate on shared priorities