Payers have to balance clinical needs, funding, added-value from providers and relevant evidence in order to gain consensus and agreement across an increasingly complex network of key stakeholders. The payer’s world is complex, to say the least.

Developing partnerships through strategic payer engagement. Generating access through collaboration and the co-creation of mutual value.

Evolving processes and emergence of new stakeholders is becoming increasingly challenging. Early engagement with payers is essential.

Focusing on 'How' to create greater access through skill and competency development makes the real difference.

Working with Global, Regional and Local payer and market access teams to forge last relationships and enhancing the patient experience.

PharmaFT and Payer Excellence

What is payer and market access excellence?

Payer engagement is a strategic priority in the pharmaceutical industry. From successful collaboration to efficiently communicating value propositions, effective payer engagement can lead to the development of optimal pharmaceutical pricing and market access strategies.

Why is it important?

Developing partnerships through strategic payer engagement is an essential practice within the global, regional and local marketplace. Access to new medicines, services and products requires a collaborative approach aimed towards an aspiration of the co-creation of mutual value. 

With a journey that begins well in advance of any product or service launch, early alignment and a shared understanding with the payer can bring around improved health outcomes whilst meeting the needs of the commercial organization.

Building strong, trusted and transparent relationships with payers may lead to unrestricted access to products, whilst improving quality of case in such a way that’s acceptable and sustainable for the healthcare system involved.

Communicating value in Global, Regional and Local Payer Market

Most organizations, at some stage, will create product or service value propositions. These are often based on clinical findings, data etc and are cascaded throughout the Global marketplace.

An organization must view the product or service value proposition through the eyes of their intended customers or payers. This ensures that proposition resonates with the desired improvement in patent care that the payer is wishing to deliver. Often the local markets need to use the overall value proposition to tailor their approach and create a ‘Payer-specific value proposition’.

The skill is then in ensuring this is correct through payer engagement and a validation process before communicating this to the wider payer decision-making unit. This process requires the internal team to work together, pool their skills and to focus on communicating value through direct customer engagement. 

The importance of Cross-Functional Team working

Engaging the broader cross-functional team within a commercially driven healthcare organization is key and yet, we often struggle to align the internal business. Experience tell us that the earlier the Market Access or Payer Access teams are engaged in the development of brand and organizational strategy, the better the outcome. Although we like to think we work within a functioning cross-functional team, the reality is we often don’t. 

Generating payer insights that will drip feed into the overall brand and product strategy requires a concerted effort by all those that can add value to the business.

It is with this regard that we feel team-working, organizational understanding of each role and a clear focus across the business delivers richer outcomes for the commercial organization, the payer and of course, the patient. 

Building Payer Excellence capabilities

Most organizations will be aware of the approach that’s right for them. They focus on process, process, process. The reality is, even with the best process in the world, without the skills and capabilities to deploy the process, it will simply land flat. 

In more recent times, there has been an increased focus on identify the knowledge, skills and capabilities associated with an excellence in Payer engagement. Although we might now want to admit it, the skills of effective Market or Payer Access Managers are very similar to those of high performance sales people and Key Account Managers.

Understanding the payer environment, identifying pressures and future aspirations is key in developing and adapting our ongoing approach to these strategically important customers. The ability to position the conversation with the payer and the skill in uncovering unmet needs whilst identifying potential opportunities to partner, are all skills that often go unnoticed or de-prioritized when it comes to developing the Market Access team. 

If we are to make a difference, we will need to place a focus on the softer, payer-facing capabilities as much as we do the technical and clinical aspects of the role. 

Why PharmaFT and Payer Excellence?

At PharmaFT, we take the time to understand  current payer-facing capabilities (internally or through industry benchmarking) and how this relates to the direction of travel and your future aspirations. We partner to ensure you are ready for the challenges that lie ahead.

Our approach is not a one-size fits all but a combination of industry-understanding, a consultancy team that includes ‘actual-payers’ and our desire to partner with our customers to generate lasting value and tangible business outcomes across Global, Regional and Local Payer and Market Access.

Discover more about PharmaFT and the value we can create together, contact us now