The Challenge
A specialty pharmaceutical manufacturer had an existing Hub program supporting a brand with a particularly complex reimbursement landscape. Despite infrastructure being in place, patients were taking 1–2 months from enrollment to therapy start, and PA approval and first-fill rates indicated meaningful room for improvement.
Neovance proactively recommended a structured patient journey mapping exercise to identify where patients were stalling and why.
Our Approach
Working collaboratively with the client, Neovance conducted end-to-end patient journey mapping from enrollment through fulfillment. The analysis surfaced key friction points and shaped a targeted improvement strategy:
- Insights & Trends Workshops: Collaborative sessions with client leadership to align on access barriers, payer dynamics, and program performance trends.
- Payer-Level Documentation: Mapped PA requirements, clinical criteria, and other requirements by payer, along with preferred pharmacies by payer.
- Expanded Patient & Provider Touchpoints: Additional outreach to keep patients engaged while helping providers navigate payer-specific requirements and reduce avoidable access barriers.
- Expanded Nurse Support: Extended nursing engagement beyond initial onboarding to include ongoing adherence and persistence outreach.
Enhanced Nursing Model
As part of the broader program improvement strategy, Neovance redesigned its nursing engagement model from a reactive approach to a structured, proactive 6-month adherence cadence.
Key changes included:
- Timing welcome calls after medication shipment so patients and caregivers could focus on clinical questions without coverage concerns.
- Assigning the same nurse throughout a patient’s first 6 months for continuity and relationship building.
- Proactively scheduling adherence calls for the full 6-month period rather than offering them reactively.
- Placing particular emphasis on caregiver engagement, recognizing the critical role caregivers play in keeping patients on therapy for this disease state.
The result: 69% of patients remained on therapy at the 6-month mark.
- Weekly Leadership Case Reviews: Structured reviews to surface high-risk cases and drive real-time program adjustments.
- FRM Collaboration: Closer coordination with the client’s Field Reimbursement Managers to strengthen payer intelligence and field-level access support.
The Results
17%
Increase in first-fill rate
From 26.0% to 42.7%
34%
Increase in PA approval rates
22%
Improvement in fill rates
The program continues to evolve through regular performance reviews, ongoing workflow refinement, and a shared commitment to keeping more patients on therapy.
Neovance has been powerful in helping more patients get on therapy by making every patient our top priority.