Medication Access Done Right

When a patient needs a high-cost medication, health system teams often have to scramble. Getting that prescription in the patient's hands means navigating a prior authorization maze and piecing together financial assistance while trying to avoid absorbing costs as uncompensated care.

For many patients, health systems repeat this process time and time again. Medication access, after all, is rarely a one-time event for patients. Many need coordinated, ongoing support to stay on therapy over time.

Cinnamon offers the support to make this happen while reducing the drag on clinician time and attention. We’ve created a comprehensive medication access platform that handles the full patient journey without adding to health systems’ costs. Here's what our solution does differently:

1. No cost to health systems

Adopting a medication access platform typically means months of ROI analysis and budget negotiations. Ironically, solving the financial and administrative burdens of medication access often requires health systems to take on more financial and administrative burdens.

At Cinnamon, we believe health systems shouldn’t have to pay to improve medication access. Our solution is funded by pharmaceutical manufacturers, and works by aligning incentives across all stakeholders:

• Health systems reduce uncompensated care and administrative burden.
• Patients access medications faster with lower out-of-pocket costs.
• Pharmaceutical brands get patients on therapy faster with better adherence.

While manufacturers fund the platform, that involvement plays no role in clinical decisions, which are made strictly by healthcare providers. Health systems retain their decision-making autonomy and get access to a full-service platform at zero cost, with no financial risk.

2. Automated prior authorizations with human oversight

Prior authorization is one of healthcare's biggest administrative time sinks. It requires digging through EHRs, verifying clinical criteria, completing forms, and tracking submissions. According to a 2024 American Medical Association survey, physicians and their staff spend 13 hours on PAs each week. While many PA automation tools exist, the majority still require significant manual work like data entry and follow-up tracking.

At Cinnamon, we’ve automated the workflow from order to approval:

• Automatic detection and screening: Medication orders and patient information are detected via EHR integration, enabling PAs to be started quickly without a need to duplicate patient information already captured in the EHR.
• AI-assisted clinical questions: For patient-related PA question sets, AI models trained by pharmacists draft preliminary answers using EHR data. Clinical staff can then review, modify, or override any response, retaining full control over every submission without having to do the manual work.
• Real-time status updates: Alerts notify your team when PAs are approved, denied, or need additional information.

This level of automation means staff can spend just minutes instead of hours per authorization, with fewer denials and faster approvals.

3. Reduced costs, increased revenue

Most medication access platforms focus exclusively on prior authorization. But even after a PA is approved, patients still need to be able to afford their medication. When they can't, health systems often end up absorbing costs through charity care or discover that patients have abandoned therapy. Neither outcome is sustainable.

Cinnamon automatically identifies financial assistance programs and streamlines the enrollment process to make medications both accessible to patients and reimbursable for health systems. Using patients’ EHR data, our Coverage Waterfall algorithm goes to work to identify the best sustainable funding source for each patient:

1. Insurance coverage for sustainable, reimbursed access
2. Copay assistance for commercially insured patients
3. Independent foundations for Medicare/government-insured patients
4. Health system charity as backup
5. Patient assistance programs (PAP), only as a last resort

Our algorithm prioritizes insurance and assistance programs, thus helping transition patients from uncompensated care to covered therapy. What was previously absorbed as charity care becomes billable, reimbursed services that generate revenue for health systems while improving patient access.

4. Support for the entire access journey

Getting the first prescription filled is just the beginning. Patients often need medications for months, years, or a lifetime, during which they can face coverage gaps and re-enrollment lapses. When those go unresolved, patients fall off therapy.

Yet this is precisely where most platforms stop. PA-only tools end at approval, leaving health systems trying to manage separate processes for the rest of the medication access journey. Too often, patients slip through the cracks.

At Cinnamon, we’ve created a solution to handle the full journey. At 60 and 30 days before assistance programs expire, automated alerts go out to keep re-enrollment on track. A centralized, real-time task management system means any team member can pick up where another left off, so staff changes or handoffs don't create gaps in patient support.

Everything connects. Patients get support from the initial prescription through the ongoing therapy without getting stuck or dropping off when jobs, relationships, financial situations, or other life circumstances change.

5. A purpose-built platform, not patchwork solutions

Many medication access platforms can feel fragmented to use because they weren’t actually built as unified systems. Instead, they bolt together separate modules, often acquired piecemeal over time. Staff end up toggling between interfaces, learning how each separate one works with data that doesn't flow between modules.

We built Cinnamon as a single medication access platform from day one. We wanted healthcare providers to be able to work within their existing workflow, not across multiple logins or separate portals, so we created one integration point with the EHR. The same data flows automatically through all functions.

Cinnamon: The Complete Choice

There’s no getting around the fact that medication access is complicated. Like life itself, it’s continuous, constantly shaped by changes that require adaptation and coordination.

Health systems deserve a solution that can handle that reality: one that supports the full journey, reduces administrative burden, avoids unnecessary costs, and helps patients stay on track with their treatment.

That’s why we built Cinnamon. It’s medication access infrastructure that connects health systems, patients, and pharmaceutical support into one cohesive experience.

If you're interested in seeing what that could look like for your organization, we’d be happy to walk through your current process and highlight where the opportunities are.

Get in touch for a conversation.

Photo by Helcim Payments on Unsplash.