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Field reimbursement managers (FRMs) often play the unsung heroes of the biopharma patient experience, facilitating a central role in helping patients access life-changing therapies. Strategically positioned at the heart of multiple teams, FRMs coordinate across multiple stakeholders (e.g., healthcare providers, specialty pharmacies, internal teams, payers, and more) to overcome reimbursement issues and patient access challenges.
Although the field reimbursement function prioritizes helping qualified patients access treatments as quickly as possible, day-to-day visibility and coordination for FRMs remains far too complex and manual.
Outdated legacy systems result in FRMs jumping between multiple systems (e.g., sales tool, HUB and/or SP portals, email, Excel spreadsheets, etc.) to track down vital information that helps them know which cases or accounts require their attention.
This critical role is inadequately equipped with legacy technology, disconnected or missing data, and little to no visibility into the end-to-end treatment experience. This inadvertently introduces inefficiencies to the process, postponing access to therapy and negatively impacting the overall patient and provider experience.
In healthcare and life sciences, the stakes are high, and every day—or hour—FRMs spend manually wading through complex access and reimbursement pathways makes a difference in the lives of patients, and their loved ones, waiting for access to specialty medications.
The good news is that purpose-built technology is available to empower FRMs in their day-to-day roles. By integrating patient information with HCP, HUB, SP and more information, patient-centric CRMs like Courier Health finally equip FRMs with the comprehensive solution they deserve – that is as powerful and responsive as they are. With centralized contact management, powerful automated workflows, and built-in communications tools, FRMs can be more strategic and efficient in order to help patients start and stay on therapy.
In biopharma, any delay or error can significantly impact access/adherence to therapies and overall health outcomes. For example, one missed appointment or lab testing procedure (e.g., blood work) could delay the renewal of prior authorization process, causing patients to miss critical doses. Seventy percent of submitted prior authorizations are incomplete or inaccurate, creating follow-up loops that delay patient access.
As American Medical Association (AMA) President Bruce A. Scott, MD put it, “When patients and their doctors face [PA-related] care delays—or even give up and abandon necessary care—the result can actually be increased overall costs when worsening health conditions.”
Field reimbursement managers work tirelessly to eliminate the behind-the-scenes causes for these delays, which we’ve called out below.
Too many FRMs still log into and use multiple systems daily, including sales CRMs, HUBs, specialty pharmacy portals, internal reports (e.g., geographic or team details), their email, and more.
The disparate nature of this setup prevents them from gaining a complete view of the end-to-end patient journey, introducing unnecessary manual steps and workarounds. All of this makes it difficult to coordinate care efficiently and to identify patterns that could be negatively impacting patient access to critical treatments (e.g., geographic specialist scarcity, step therapy, or referral patterns).
To manage patient affordability and market access, FRMs must also be masterful coordinators, working with everyone from internal patient support services teams and nurse navigators to SPs or sales teams. Each stakeholder adds layers of communication, administration, and complexity that make it incredibly difficult to proactively recognize and efficiently remedy issues–unless you have the help of a comprehensive patient-focused healthcare CRM like Courier Health.
Another struggle of FRMs is educating HCPs, HCOs, and other stakeholders on the barriers that threaten patient adherence, such as the prior authorization (PA) submission process.
Per the National Organization for Rare Disorders (NORD), complex and ever-changing PA requirements result in:
FRMs provide comprehensive education on reimbursement processes to counteract all-too-common access and adherence gates, which are particularly complex for specialty therapies used to treat chronic conditions and rare diseases.
There is good news on the horizon for field access leaders and their team of FRMs. Courier Health provides a central command center to support getting patients onto therapy, and it is purpose-built to address the unique challenges and complexities of their specialized role. This includes the following features:
What’s more, the system’s powerful automation boosts overall team efficiency, which, in the case of FRMs, often translates into faster therapy access and a better patient experience. This remains the end goal for field reimbursement leaders like Heather Polk, who aim to get approved patients “onto treatment as fast as possible.” In addition, when Courier Health’s CRM takes administrative tasks off the plates of FRMs, it frees up their time to spend it on more strategic, high-level activities.
Unlike industry-agnostic tools, Courier Health’s platform is specifically designed for biopharma field access, patient services, and marketing. This includes all the functionality an FRM requires like patient, provider, and HCO data management, compliant communications templates, territory management, and omnichannel workflows (including texts and fax).
These capabilities support more efficient, effective, and strategic outreach, ultimately improving market access and program outcomes.
A patient-focused CRM has many advantages, including improved communication across internal teams, HCP offices, and other external partners. The right CRM solution enables FRMs to provide more personalized follow-up and support that increases the odds of qualified patients starting and staying on therapies, including specialty products.
Beyond all the features outlined above, the highly specialized role of FRM requires a specialized solution that seamlessly integrates with their existing systems, including:
Complete data integration and visibility is essential to improve communication and collaboration between parties, to reduce inefficiencies, and to guarantee that stakeholders, whether that’s access managers or prior authorization specialists, work from the same source of information.
By centralizing data and automating powerful dynamic workflows, Courier Health enables field access with six tools in one, helping FRMs collaborate with others, respond faster, and act more strategically. Additionally, the system is built to adapt and scale as programs change, new partners are added, or territories re-align—unlike industry-agnostic platforms that require continuous customization.
To say that a field reimbursement manager (FRM) juggles a lot in service to patient care is an understatement. From overseeing large territories with numerous accounts and managing multiple stakeholders to mastering many different systems, their job is filled with unexpected challenges that directly impact patients’ access to therapy.
Courier Health’s purpose-built patient CRM helps solve all these problems, equipping FRMs with the capabilities they need to optimize complex access and reimbursement pathways so that patients can access and adhere to their treatments. The Courier Health Platform connects disparate data and provides real-time visibility into the end-to-end patient journey, enabling FRMs to act quickly and strategically.
Optimize your reimbursement processes and empower your FRMs by contacting Courier Health today.
True patient-centricity. Everyone says it, but few deliver. Upgrade your patient experience with Courier Health.
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