Pfizer maintained its first place position on familiarity, satisfaction and overall Patient Assistance Program (PAP) image from a year ago, but some companies are gaining ground at Pfizer's expense. The percentage of physicians that rated Pfizer's PAP as "best" dropped significantly this year, whereas AstraZeneca, sanofi-aventis, and Abbott showed significant increases.
"AstraZeneca moved from fifth to second place in this year's survey," said Jack Fyock, PhD, a vice president at Market Strategies who leads Market Strategies' Access to Care group.
The study was fielded in June with over 200 physicians and 150 office staff who evaluated 26 program features, office interactions, and corporate commitment attributes to determine which measures drive a company's PAP image and performance.
"In this tough economic downturn, PAPs are playing an ever increasing role in patient care," said Fyock. "Nearly 90% of primary care physicians reported an increase in the number of patients who struggle with prescription costs and over 60% of these physicians indicated mentioning PAPs to their patients more often," he added.
A company's enrollment procedure, corporate commitment toward PAP, and impact on office time, emerged as key drivers in shaping what physicians' think of a company's PAP.
In addition to tracking changes among physicians, this year's study included the opinions of office staff that, in many respects, are the individuals charged with helping patients enroll in a PAP. Physicians and office staff tend to hold similar beliefs in what they think of a PAP, but there are differences. Call center and website support as well as speed of application approval drive opinions of office staff more than physicians.
Office staff also made greater distinctions within companies. For example, office staff rated the speed at which the GSK's PAP gets patients their medications number one, but GSK's requirement that "advocates" enroll patients comes at a cost. GSK ranked near the bottom in keeping staff time to a minimum. "Unfortunately for GSK, keeping staff time to a minimum is a key driver in determining overall PAP image and their overall ranking suffers as a result," Fyock stated.
Merck's top three position among physicians and office staff appears driven in large part by its strong performance on enrollment features and ensuring patients have access to medications.
Novartis dropped out of the top five in this year's study and ranked in the middle of the pack with office staff. Its ranking was primarily the result of poor performance on speed of application approval and call-center support among office staff and concerned about patients among physicians.
"In the past year, companies have made changes to their PAP to distinguish themselves from others. Results in this study provide evidence that these changes are making a difference, noted Fyock."
The full report reveals overall familiarity, satisfaction, and image scores for all 14 companies and the relative importance of the 26 performance metrics showing companies where to focus their PAP resources. In addition, the report presents company rankings on the 14 items and a customized supplement that shows how a company performs against its key competitors. "The customized supplement provides strategic guidance in their efforts to establish leadership in PAP," stated Fyock.
Market Strategies' 2009 MSImage PAP Syndicated study was released to its subscribers in August/September of 2009. The questionnaire was fielded via the Internet among 203 physicians and 150 office staff in June. Physicians and Office Staff were recruited from a nationally representative e-research panel.
