Erivedge, a new anti-cancer drug from Genentech was approved at the end of January.  Assistance programs include co-pay assistance for insured patients as well as free access for qualified uninsured and denied coverage patients.  The drug is delivered only through specialty pharmacies directly to the patient.  A link for more information is here.

After a hiatus of several months for the Lovenox Patient Assistance Program, it appears Sanofi has reversed its decision based upon "recent changes in the market".

While we, and all the affected patients, are thankful to have this program once again available, it does beg certain questions...

• Why does "market events" so abruptly affect a supposedly charitable program?
• Why isn't the program reinstated back to the termination date?
• Why aren't "market events" affecting the reinstatement of the approximately 15-20 other Sanofi products cancelled last Fall which represent close to $2 Billion dollars in annual sales by our calculations?  
• One of the canceller drugs is Taxotere, which alone sold an estimated $1.2 Billion last year.  Isn't a Billion dollars enough to be able to afford a patient assistance program? 

Let us know what you think...

Becker's Hospital Review recently posted an article on the 10 top ways for hospitals to increase profitability.  The article got me wondering as to how Patient Assistance Programs (PAPs) might assist achieving these endpoints. 

You can see the full article here but below are the ten points with a checkmark on the items I think can benefit from optimal utilization of patient assistance programs and a short description as to why.

            Focus on the continuum of care – This subject is number one on a lot of “top ten” lists.  Making PAPs for self-administered drugs available to outpatients and discharged inpatients, especially for chronic conditions, can help improve compliance.  It’s well known that many patients eligible for these programs aren’t aware of them or don’t have the wherewithal to use them. A support network built around Rx Review’s easy-to-use software interface and central processing staff makes this very feasible.

        Design models to reduce readmissions – Here again, non- compliance with drug regimens often means an earlier return to the ER for this patient population.

• Have a good relationship with payors, and renegotiate managed care contracts

• Manage new service lines to increase market share

Control labor costs – Holding down labor cost percentages has a lot to do with the time to complete an action and the quality of the result.  The latter is often missed but the fact is that sometimes we don’t get paid (or worse, it costs much more to fix) for a failed result.  Doing it right the first time is certainly a valuable strategy in the healthcare environment.  For the same reason that you want to go to a surgeon who’s frequently and successfully done the same operation, you look for someone who knows what they are doing regardless of the subject matter.

Reduce supply costs by working with vendors and physicians – Lots of people or organizations are willing to help out in sometimes very significant ways.  It’s not uncommon for PAP programs in some areas to reach one million dollars in product replacement costs.

• Improve deficiencies in the emergency room and operating room

Create population health management programs to gather health data analytics on chronic illnesses – Extending home care to former patients via PAPs allows a vehicle to maintain a source of information on compliance with drug regimens in a high profile population.

        Consider outsourcing some services – OK, if you followed me to this point, this is a no-brainer if you don’t have an organized effort to recover drugs via patient assistance programs.  Even if you do, we know to make ourselves valuable to our clients, we have to return more in savings than it costs to outsource to us.  We do this by being very good at achieving results.  And we don’t ask for a penny until after you’ve received the replacement products in your pharmacy. 

• Revamp the energy cost strategy
  
  
  

You may recognize the title taken from the Grimm fairy tale about a brave and clever little tailor who manages to kill seven flies with one blow and eventually parlays that into becoming king of the land.  If you are so inclined, you can read the full version here. The title lends itself also to how a relatively simple to engage and risk free process can actually help hospitals compete in seven new categories of healthcare provider performance measures.

Healthcare Payment Reform plans are pointing at cutting costs by increasing efficiency and improving quality outcomes.  A National Quality Forum sponsored RAND study of proposed payment initiatives analyzed over 90 different payment schemes and boiled them down to eleven classifications.  There were seven organizational development commonalities that cut across all eleven criteria and which healthcare organizations will have to come to grip with over the next few years in order to achieve maximum benefit.

1. outcome measures that focus on patient results—from avoidable harms to improved health;
2. care coordination measures that capture appropriate patient follow-up care needed to keep patients on track to improved health;
3. patient engagement measures to assess whether care empowers patients and their caregivers to improve health;
4. organizational capability measures that assess whether new systems (accountable care organizations and medical homes) are sufficient to deliver high-quality care;
5. composite measures that combine the results of individual measures into an overall indicator of quality, allowing for a more comprehensive assessment of the care delivered to patients;
6. efficiency measures that combine quality and resource use measures; and
7. disparity measures that ensure efforts to cut costs don’t lead to favoring certain types of patients.

There are some initiatives that can help organizations in more than one of these areas.  Optimal recovery of unreimbursed drug expenses through manufacturer-sponsored patient assistance programs (PAPs) may not be the first thing that jumps to mind, but its true!.  Besides saving a pile of money, here's how Rx Review's systems can help you improve against these criteria...

Rx Review's programs can  be initiated on a pay-as-you-go basis where our reward is based upon our how successful we are for the client.  We tailor each engagement to the needs and desires of the client, everything from fully staffed solutions to annual audit/performance studies.  Our intuitive workflow management software is dead simple for onsite staff to work with...just collect the identified data and scan it in.  We do the rest right through to the product arriving at your doorstep.