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Covered entities do incredible work for their patients every day. The 340B program plays a critical role in helping them do that by stretching scarce resources to expand care, providing medications, and strengthening community health. But here’s the catch: many patients don’t even know how to access or leverage the benefits covered entities provide thanks to 340B.
We’ve heard it time and again: patients don’t understand the value of using your in-house pharmacy, they’re unaware of financial assistance options, or they struggle with medication adherence despite having resources available to them. Despite your organization working hard to achieve 340B savings and benefit your patients, patients are often overwhelmed and struggle to navigate the maze of healthcare.
This is why we recommend every covered entity develop a pharmacy patient engagement strategy – a structured approach to communication that ensures patients not only receive care but also feel the benefits of the 340B program in meaningful ways.
The Three Pillars of Patient Engagement
To maximize the impact of your 340B program, your engagement strategy should focus on three core areas:
1. Educate Patients on your Pharmacy Resources
- Why it’s good for you: Education typically leads to higher pharmacy capture rates, meaning more prescriptions filled through your own pharmacy – increasing 340B savings and strengthening your program’s sustainability.
- Why it’s good for patients: Patients that use provider pharmacies benefit from more coordinated care, greater financial resources, and have been proven to achieve better adherence and clinical outcomes.
2. Provide Medication Adherence & Refill Support
- Why it’s good for you: Improved adherence reduces waste, prevents gaps in care, and strengthens your pharmacy’s overall performance metrics.
- Why it’s good for patients: Staying on their medications leads to better health outcomes, fewer complications, and reduced risk of hospital admissions.
3. Guide Patients Through Financial Assistance Options
- Why it’s good for you: Patients who understand available financial resources are more likely to both stay within your system and stay adherent, improving both your capture and Star ratings.
- Why it’s good for patients: Clear communication about copay assistance, discounts, or patient assistance programs helps patients stay on therapy without the burden of unaffordable costs.
Why AI Is the Right Tool for the Patient Engagement
Even with the best intentions, most pharmacy teams don’t always have the bandwidth to manage patient outreach for all these functions at scale. Additionally, patients don’t always respond to existing modes of communication – your team has probably felt the burden of calls going to voicemail and patients being difficult to reach. This is where AI can help with automated, personalized outreach to patients via call, text, and e-mail.
CompassRx has created AI pharmacy care navigators to augment your team’s patient outreach and driven meainingful results thus far:
- 10X Improved Efficiency: 90% fewer phone calls needed by teams that use CompassRx’s AI for automated patient engagement (e.g. calls, texts, emails), freeing up staff time for higher-value work.
- Double the Care Time for At Risk Patients: With CompassRx, teams handle just 10% of the call volume but spend twice as long on each call, focusing on more complex patient questions and providing deeper support where it matters most.
- 3X Patient Response rate: Switching from basic SMS to CompassRx AI outreach drives a threefold increase in engagement consistently across all demographics, with patients from as young as 18 to as old as 94 actively conversing with our AI agents.
- Cost-effective scalability: You can reach thousands of patients with consistent, high-quality touch points – without incurring massive overhead or new staffing costs. You’ll no longer have to triage outreach either, every patient can now receive support for adherence and refills.
- Personalization at scale: AI can tailor messages based on patient needs, preferences, and behaviors, making communication feel personal instead of generic.
The Bottom Line: Bringing 340B to Life for Patients
At its heart, the 340B program is about patients. But for patients to feel the full benefits, covered entities must bridge the communication gap between available resources and real-world patient experience.
With an AI-powered engagement strategy, you can drive stronger 340B savings for your organization, healthier outcomes for your patients, and a sustainable path forward in today’s challenging healthcare landscape.Want to talk through your pharmacy’s engagement strategy? Contact CompassRx to learn how our AI-powered patient engagement solution can help you achieve all of the above safely, effectively, and at scale.
Alice Cheng is chief operating officer of CompassRx. She can be reached at alice@compassrx.com.
