A Guide to Your Pharma Field Team: Resources for Patient Access and Support

Getting a patient on a complex treatment often requires care teams to ask a slew of pressing questions. Why was this prior authorization denied? How should patients administer this medication? What do we know about long-term outcomes for this therapy?

The good news is that support often exists to help care teams find those answers. Pharmaceutical companies maintain field-based teams whose job is to support healthcare organizations with everything from scientific education to reimbursement challenges to therapy-related training. These specialists want to help care teams overcome barriers that can delay treatment or disrupt patient care.

Unfortunately, many healthcare organizations don't fully tap into these teams as resources, simply because finding the right person at the right time isn’t always easy. To facilitate the connection, Cinnamon’s platform allows participating pharmaceutical manufacturers to make the appropriate regional field teams easy to reach within the medication access workflow. Healthcare organizations can then directly contact the right person to request support, at no cost to the health system.

Understanding the different roles can help care teams get answers faster to help patients get started on therapy more quickly and efficiently.

Who’s who: The members of a pharma field team

Pharmaceutical companies maintain entire teams with specialized expertise covering the financial, technical, scientific, and administrative aspects of starting a therapy, and many of these experts are known by acronyms. Do you need an FRM, an MSL, or an OL?

Here’s what those acronyms mean and what roles they represent. Keep in mind that because titles aren’t standardized across the industry, similar roles may go by different names depending on the manufacturer, and new variations continue to emerge.

1. Access and reimbursement specialists

Role: Helping patients start and stay on therapy

Typical titles:

• Field reimbursement manager (FRM)
• Access reimbursement manager (ARM)
• Patient access manager (PAM)

Main question they answer: How do we get this patient onto, and keep them on, therapy?

Access and reimbursement specialists focus on the operational realities of getting patients onto therapy and helping them stay on as long as they need it. Although often thought of as “the prior authorization people,” they really help navigate the full range of access challenges: understanding payer requirements, following reimbursement processes, identifying support programs, and the like.

The titles FRM, ARM, and PAM are often used interchangeably, though PAMs may focus more on patient access and support program coordination, while FRMs and ARMs more specifically on reimbursement.

2. Patient educators and navigators

Role: Educating and supporting patients through therapy

Typical titles:

• Clinical nurse educator
• Patient navigator
• Nurse navigator

Main question they answer: How do we help this patient succeed on therapy?

Patient educators and navigators provide guidance throughout onboarding and ongoing therapy to help patients understand their therapy and navigate the treatment journey with the educational and support resources they need.

Clinical nurse educators usually focus on disease and therapy education. They may explain how a therapy works and answer treatment questions, such as those about expected side effects. They may also provide training on therapy administration, such as teaching patients how to use an autoinjector or administer an infusion at home. Patient and nurse navigators, on the other hand, tend to focus more on care coordination and support, such as connecting patients with resources and arranging appointments.

Clinical nurse educators and patient navigators are particularly common in specialty and complex therapies that require specific dispensing, side effect management, and ongoing guidance for patients.

3. Medical science liaisons (MSLs)

Role: Providing scientific and clinical expertise

Typical titles:

• Medical science liaison (MSL)
• Regional Medical Advisor
• Field Medical Director

Main question they answer: What does the science say?

MSLs are scientific and clinical experts who support deeper discussions about a therapy. Typically, MSLs have an advanced clinical or scientific degree, such as PharmD, PhD, MD, DO, or advanced nursing credentials. They can answer complex scientific questions about disease states, clinical data, emerging research, and evidence behind a treatment.

In addition, MSLs often are the best source of information about a company’s clinical research efforts. They can discuss recent clinical trial results and emerging therapies in development to help healthcare organizations stay abreast of the evolving evidence within a therapeutic area.

4. Health outcomes liaisons (HOLs)

Role: Showing a therapy’s real-world impact

Typical titles:

• Health outcomes liaison (HOL)
• Health economics and outcomes research liaisons (HEORL)
• Value liaison

Main question they answer: What impact does this therapy have at the population or system level?

About 56% of pharmaceutical companies have a dedicated HOL team to communicate the value of therapies in real-world settings, outside of clinical trials. They often support discussions around health economics, quality metrics, healthcare utilization, and value-based care initiatives.

Since their work is focused on broader outcomes, OLs typically engage with payers and health system leaders. Common stakeholders at the health-system level include pharmacy or medical directors, teams focused on population health and value-based care, quality teams, and others responsible for evaluating therapies at a system level. For example, if a health system is considering the adoption of a specialty therapy, an OL could answer questions about a therapy’s impact based on economic evidence and real-world outcomes data.

5. Sales representatives

Role: Connecting healthcare organizations with the right resources

Typical titles:

• Sales representative
• Account manager
• Business account executive

Main question they answer: Who is the right person to talk to?

The sales representative is often the most visible member of a pharmaceutical field team and frequently serves as the first point of contact between healthcare organizations and manufacturers. They can provide information about approved products, patient support programs, and other available resources, including free samples. Sales representatives can also connect care teams with the appropriate team member when more specialized support is needed.

Both sales representatives and account managers help healthcare organizations access the resources and expertise they need, though account managers may have a stronger focus on the organizational relationship with a health system or large provider organization.

Bringing field team support into the medication access workflow

One of the challenges for care teams is knowing who to contact when an issue comes up. Historically, healthcare organizations relied on business cards and personal relationships to track down the right contact, but relying on slower, manual methods can delay patient support.

Cinnamon helps connect healthcare organizations with the right regional field team members directly within its medication access platform. Without interrupting the workflow, care teams can request and receive support via virtual or in-person meetings.

Make it easier for your teams to get in touch with the pharma field experts they need. Get in touch with us to see a demo of the Cinnamon platform.