Healthcare CRM: Definition, Benefits and Features

Customer relationship management (CRM) systems are used across nearly every industry to help organize client and account data and information, such as contact details, historical and ongoing communications, purchase history, and more. The aim is to connect various data sets, systems, and teams so there’s one central record to deliver a smooth, coordinated customer experience.

Today’s healthcare and life sciences industry is no different. Healthcare CRMs are designed to manage patient data, as well as healthcare provider and organization information, and seamlessly coordinate the journey from diagnosis to prescription to initiating and staying on therapy. 

In the case of innovative specialty medicines, this generally involves pulling together countless data points—from patient and provider information to clinical info (perhaps via Electronic Health Records or EHRs) to Payer or reimbursement information to fulfillment and delivery of specialty prescriptions. 

The demand for patient relationship management is projected to increase by nearly 10% year over year in the next decade. Biopharma companies increasingly see the value of patient-focused CRMs to coordinate across patients, providers, and healthcare organizations and to ensure a smooth treatment experience. 

Healthcare professionals—whether prescribers, HCP office staff, or, less obviously, patient services managers or field reimbursement managers—simply have too much patient information to manually track. Without a robust, purpose-built healthcare CRM system, important details can easily be lost, and patients can be overlooked in the complex journey to start and stay on therapy. 

For those in the life sciences and healthcare industry, effective customer relationship management can increase patient satisfaction, improve treatment start and continuation rates, and help achieve better patient outcomes. 

This guide will explore the world of healthcare CRM software to uncover its vast functions, benefits, and uses.

What Is a Healthcare CRM?

From patient records, consent management, and communications preferences to prior authorization and shipment status, there’s plenty of pertinent information that field access, patient services, and marketing teams need to access throughout patient journeys. A healthcare CRM is a software platform that can help store, organize, automate, and report on this crucial information.

Like CRMs in other industries, healthcare and life sciences CRMs sort data and make it easier to find when needed. Purpose-built solutions differ, however, in providing features and functionality designed specifically for the nuances of life sciences (e.g., focusing on patient outcomes as opposed to thinking in industry-agnostic tasks or statuses) and complying with HIPAA regulations.

With a CRM specifically built for life sciences, biopharma commercial teams (e.g. patient access, support services, and marketing) can easily and compliantly access:

• Where patients stand across key stages or milestones (e.g. intake, benefits investigation, on therapy)
• Tailored recommended actions to prioritize their day and customer engagement
• Upcoming appointments
• Key interactions (e.g. email, text messages, phone calls, faxes)
• Medical history for consented patients (e.g. clinical documentation or appeal letters for prior authorizations) 

For teams managing various patient cases and provider accounts, having this information at your fingertips simplifies complex care coordination. HIPAA-compliant patient CRMs support a patient-centric approach by enabling biopharma companies to improve communication, collaboration, and consistency across the treatment experience, including with healthcare organizations and providers. 

Benefits of Using a Healthcare CRM

Whether dealing with disorganized data or spending too much time combing through spreadsheets to identify cases (or healthcare professionals) that need attention, effective healthcare and life sciences CRM streamlines work with the following features.

Enhanced Data Management and Collaboration

Electronic records and CRMs let teams search patient and provider lists and instantly access and share key information across stakeholders.

Critical to healthcare and life sciences, however, is that sensitive patient data—or protected health information (PHI)—must be securely and compliantly stored in any CRM. Leading, industry-specific solutions provide built-in authentication and authorization restrictions, data encryption, sophisticated PHI obfuscation, and other digital protection measures dynamically enforced according to user roles and permissions.

That’s how leading healthcare and life sciences-focused CRMs provide a powerful HIPAA-compliant system that's the single source of truth for:

• Field access and reimbursement teams
• Patient services
• Patient marketing
• Commercial operations and analytics
• Commercial leadership

With this internal command center, everyone has access to the data they need, leading to more tailored, effective, personalized program management. 

Streamlined Operations

Not only does an effective CRM streamline operations by providing real-time visibility across teams, but it can also automate manual tasks and eliminate inefficiencies that slow teams down and impact the patient experience. 

For instance, intelligent healthcare and life sciences CRMs will proactively surface patient cases or HCP accounts requiring attention, highlighting which individuals and healthcare providers’ offices to engage. This frees teams up to focus on higher-quality interactions with patients and providers.

Take field reimbursement managers as an example. In the past, they’d have to switch between multiple platforms to understand patients’ statuses and needs, such as:

• Excel spreadsheets
• Phone, email, and calendar systems
• Sales tools
• Various service provider (e.g., HUB, SP) dashboards
• Internal dashboards or BI systems

Now, they can use a purpose-built patient CRM for life sciences to understand what’s happening across their therapy and which patients or providers need their attention. 

Improved Patient Engagement 

Healthcare CRMs also foster closer patient relationships, which is the first step towards improving patient engagement and helping individuals become advocates and ambassadors to help improve overall health outcomes. 

Roughly thirty percent of patients never start a prescribed treatment, while another thirty to forty percent discontinue within the first few months and quit within a month. Engaged patients are more likely to finish medication regimens and adopt other health-positive habits. With consistent, tailored follow-ups and ongoing patient marketing campaigns, CRMs provide the support necessary to help keep patients on track with their treatment. 

Key Features of a Healthcare CRM

When evaluating healthcare and life sciences CRMs for your company, be sure to consider the below features.

Contact Management

CRMs simplify data management so patient information is never more than a few clicks away. Leading CRMs will not only enable patient data management but healthcare provider and healthcare organization management as well—essentially anyone involved in the patient journey to start and stay on the medicine. 

For optimal operational efficiency, seek out these features from your healthcare CRM:

• Consent capture: CRMs can record consent and keep it on file for future uses. 
• Communication preferences: Let patients and providers choose how you contact them—whether via phone, SMS (text), email, or another channel. 
• Scheduling tools: Display open time slots and allow your patients to book their own appointments like for an initial injection training. 
• Reminders: Contact your patients a day or two ahead (via their preferred communication method) to remind them of upcoming appointments or milestones. 
• Surveys: Easily gather insights from patients, caregivers, or providers in a structured format to improve organization, unlock insights, and gain a richer view of the patient/provider experience. 

Communication Tools

With integrations for email, texting, phone calls, and other popular communication mediums, patient services CRMs eliminate the need to check records on one platform, find phone numbers on another, and then physically type up texts on another system.

Having a single system to send and receive communications saves time and money. When phone calls, business emails, and more can all be handled from a single channel, there’s no need to bolt on additional tools (and manage additional vendor contracts in the process). 

Integration Capabilities

From external EHRs to insurance information, Specialty Pharmacy (SP) updates, HUB statuses, and more, a network of dots must be connected to get a full picture of a patient’s journey. 

Luckily, robust CRMs, specifically designed for this industry, can integrate with existing systems to provide a single source of truth. This frees teams from jumping between systems to store and utilize information, lowering the chances of missing information or cases in the process. 

Workflow Automation

Patient journeys are complex and diverse, but advanced healthcare CRMs help field access and patient services teams track patients' paths across the ecosystem. With powerful automation to build, execute, measure, and optimize key journeys in the process, biopharma companies can save time, deliver more personalized experiences, and unlock insights that enable continuous testing and improvement. 

This automation applies from the small-scale tasks to the more significant SOPs (Standard Operating Procedures), including: 

• Laying out your schedule in a day-at-a-glance
• Recommending follow-up actions
• Automating patient intakes
• Streamlining patient or provider welcome calls to ensure quick, top-notch service
• Simplifying renewals of prior authorization 

The most advanced CRMs enhance patient interactions through real-time, data-driven visibility and purpose-built functionality that enables patient services and field access teams to deliver higher-quality interactions. This reinforcement in the middle of the patient funnel is critical to improving conversion and persistence without increasing demand at the top of the funnel. It’s good for patients, and it’s good for businesses. 

Analytics and Reporting

Purpose-built CRMs will also provide insights around key metrics like average time to therapy, patient load per team member, and more. 

Similarly, you can't improve patient and provider relationships and the overall treatment experience if you don’t know which aspects of your operation are underperforming. CRMs give you the data-driven insights you need to identify and remedy gaps in your program that are hindering patient outcomes. 

Compliance and Security

Like every aspect of your organization, your CRM must be HIPAA compliant and safeguard sensitive data and PHI. The fines for violating HIPAA range from $50,000 to $250,000, depending on various circumstances, on top of jeopardizing patient privacy and trust. 

In healthcare and life sciences, the stakes are high—and rightly so, because patient lives are at stake. Companies have a duty to think differently about evolving the treatment paradigm to improve patient care and make strategic tech investments that will support that while ensuring compliance. 

Upgrade Your Patient Experience With Courier Health

Finding the right purpose-built CRM makes it easier to provide tailored patient access and support services, expedites access to critical information when you need it most, and offers critical insight into improving your operations and strategic differentiation. 

Courier Health is the only patient-focused CRM built for biopharma teams. Reach out to Courier Health to learn how we can partner together to upgrade your patient experience.