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Communications Health Plans

3 Strategies for Improving Pharmacy Outreach and Achieving Higher ROI

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Pharmacy leaders are under increasing pressure to drive program engagement and achieve higher ROI, while dealing with a shrinking pool of resources and distracted healthcare consumers. It’s a daunting task, but we’ve been helping our clients successfully navigate these challenges for years and we’ve learned a thing or two about improving program outcomes along the way. We have found that the most successful programs are those that combine predictive analytics with multi-channel communications (e.g. email, SMS text, IVR, snail mail and more). 

Thanks to consumer-first companies like Amazon, the market is primed for a deeper level of personalization and engagement. And thanks to advances in predictive analytics, machine learning and big data, the healthcare industry is primed to deliver smarter programs to consumers. 

We summarized our top 3 strategies for building smarter pharmacy programs that maximize your organization’s time, money, and resources:

1. Leverage consumer data, because claims data is not enough 

By combining typically underutilized consumer data with claims data and leveraging advanced analytics, you can get a holistic view of your population and each individuals’ health needs.

Social determinants of health and variables like how far the nearest grocery store is, if you have family living at home, and how long you commute to work may seem mundane, but they can help your organization understand factors such as who is likely to be non-adherent, who is unlikely to refill a prescription, and who is likely to use generics.  

With a deep understanding of your population, you can shape your outreach strategy to yield the most favorable results.

2. Switch from “spray-and-pray” to “strategic targeting”

Understanding your population and their needs is a good start, but the real magic happens when you leverage data to go from “spray-and-pray” to strategic targeting. Watch Mike Cicciu, Welltok’s Pharmacy and PBM engagement expert, explain this using a real life example in the 2 min video below. 

3. Follow best practices

Finally, make sure you’re following best practices. Our analysis and experience show that specific communication modalities are most effective when used in specific situations. For example, texting is often a great ‘notification’ or ‘trigger’ for order status updates, whereas automated calls might be better for refill reminders.

Don’t limit your outreach to a single-channel strategy because you’re not sure where to start or worried about TCPA fines. Find a partner who can help you navigate compliance and follow industry leading best practices so you can deliver personalized experiences that are better for your members – and your bottom line. 

Click here to learn more about our Pharmacy solutions.