Unlocking the Gate: The Critical First 24 Hours of Patient Hub Engagement

Today’s guest post comes from Kristine McGaughey, Vice President, Implementation at ConnectiveRx and Sam Blake, SVP, Hub Product at ConnectiveRx.

Sam and Kristine discuss the importance of the first 24 hours of a patient’s engagement with a hub services program. They outline five reasons why two components—patient enrollment and successful benefits verification—dictate the effectiveness of a patient support program.

To learn more, register for ConnectiveRx’s free June 3 webinar: Unlocking the Gate: The Critical First 24 Hours of Patient Hub Engagement.

Read on for Kristine and Sam’s insights.

Unlocking the Gate: The Critical First 24 Hours of Patient Hub Engagement
By Sam Blake, SVP, Hub Product and Kristine McGaughey, Vice President, Implementation, ConnectiveRx

Hub Services represent a complex ecosystem of patient support—from welcome calls and prior authorizations to case management and financial assistance programs. But if your hub doesn’t create a smooth patient enrollment and a swift benefits verification (BV), the rest of your hub’s services will be inaccessible, rendering the entire support system ineffective.

As a provider of tech-forward hub services, ConnectiveRx is constantly pushing for an improved customer experience through faster enrollment and verification. We create processes and solutions focused on removing friction and potential barriers to these initial steps.

We dedicate so much time to getting Enrollment and BV right for five primary reasons:

1) Gateway to Patient Access and Care
These are the critical first steps enabling patients to access prescribed therapies:

• They address key barriers related to insurance coverage, financial constraints, and logistical challenges, ensuring patients start and continue their therapies without undue delay.
• They capture vital patient consents that provide the framework for coordination between patient, hub, HCP, insurer, and pharmacy.
• They open the door to additional hub services that can often be completed within the critical first 24 hours: prior authorization submission and appeal, bridge product initiation, enrollment in copay support or patient assistance program, etc.

2) Financial Clarity and Risk Management
These elements are essential for managing financial aspects and risks:

• BV confirms insurance coverage and patient eligibility upfront, providing clarity on financial obligations before services are rendered.
• They help reduce the risk of claim denials, unexpected out-of-pocket expenses, and patient dissatisfaction.

3) Administrative Efficiency and Coordination
The foundational nature of these elements is evident in their role in administrative processes:

• They reduce the administrative burden on HCPs by confirming insurance coverage and patient eligibility at the start.
• They enable HCPs to focus more on patient care rather than dealing with insurance issues.
• They serve as a central point for coordinating efforts between multiple stakeholders.

4) Impact on Treatment Outcomes
These elements directly influence treatment success:

• Proper enrollment and BV lead to better adherence to treatment plans, since patients face fewer financial and logistical barriers.
• They ensure patients understand their coverage and financial responsibilities, increasing the likelihood of engagement with HCPs.
• They help maintain patient momentum in treatment by preventing interruptions due to administrative or financial issues.

5) Foundation for Confidence and Security
These elements establish a solid foundation for the entire patient journey:

• They provide a structured starting point that gives the hub team confidence in the integrity of each patient's onboarding and ongoing journey.
• They create a secure framework that ensures all subsequent support activities can proceed with certainty and clarity.
• They provide indispensable groundwork supporting other hub services.

Today's technology-enabled hub services model streamlines the critical enrollment and BV processes. These integrated solutions allow for seamless enrollment through multiple channels, including direct EHR integration that enables providers to enroll patients during the prescribing workflow, reducing administrative burden and accelerating the onboarding process. The non-commercial pharmacy (NCP) channel further expands enrollment opportunities by connecting patients at the pharmacy level, capturing those who might otherwise fall through traditional enrollment gaps.

Digital portals provide a self-service option, allowing prescribers and patients to initiate enrollment 24/7 through user-friendly interfaces. These multiple entry points are complemented by real-time electronic benefit verification (eBV) capabilities that deliver immediate insurance coverage insights, dramatically reducing the traditional wait times from days to minutes.

Importantly, hub enrollment can often be completed with just five “minimum viable enrollment” fields: first name, last name, date of birth, sex, and zip code. This reduces friction and boosts immediate hub enrollment, while other identifiers (e.g., household income, concomitant meds) can be collected later as needed. A stakeholder-friendly ecosystem ensures that the critical first 24 hours of hub engagement are optimized for speed and efficiency, allowing patients to quickly unlock the full suite of support services available to them.

Finally, as artificial intelligence progresses, hub providers will begin to integrate advanced AI tools into patient relationship management software as a background application that helps hub agents identify and implement the “next best action” for each patient. As a result, we envision a near-term future when the entire onboarding process is accomplished with even greater operational efficiency.

Enrollment and benefit verification provide the foundational framework for unlocking the gate that enables all other aspects of hub programs to function effectively. By ensuring proper patient access, financial clarity, and administrative efficiency, these processes help patients quickly get on and stay on crucial medications. Only by unlocking this gate can patients truly benefit from the comprehensive ecosystem of support that hub services are designed to provide.

To learn more about the keys to a successful patient support services program, register for a free online panel discussion, Unlocking the Gate: The Critical First 24 Hours of Patient Hub Engagement, on June 3 at 1:00 pm ET.

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