Why Moving Patient Access Closer to the Point of Care Improves Speed to Therapy

For pharmaceutical commercial teams, patient access efficiency is becoming more urgent as many practical barriers to therapy initiation still emerge after a prescription is written. Prior authorization requirements, benefit uncertainty, affordability questions, pharmacy delays and patient confusion can all appear after the clinical decision has already been made.

Every additional step between prescribing and therapy start creates an opportunity for delay, abandonment or a loss of confidence. For patients, that can mean leaving the office without a clear understanding of what happens next. For providers and care teams, it can mean more follow-up calls, more administrative work and more pressure on already constrained staff. For pharmaceutical manufacturers, it can mean that well-designed commercial strategies lose momentum at one of the most critical moments in the patient journey: the point of care.

The industry has an opportunity to bring patient access support closer to prescribing in the electronic health record (EHR), connect it more naturally to health system workflows, and align it with how care is increasingly delivered across integrated settings. As physician affiliation with hospitals, health systems and other corporate entities continues to grow, access support needs to fit the operational reality of those environments. For pharma teams, this also means recognizing the convergence of media, access, and data at the point of care, where engagement, support and measurement increasingly need to work together to improve efficiency and speed to therapy.

Embedded Access Support at the Point of Care

The point of prescribing is a decisive moment within the point of care. It is when the patient and provider have aligned on a treatment decision, when the patient is most engaged, and when unanswered access questions can either reinforce confidence or introduce hesitation.

Commercial and market access teams often think carefully about patient affordability, hub support, benefits verification, and adherence programs. Many of these resources are still separate from the care team’s daily workflow inside health systems and at the point of care. They may sit in separate portals, require separate logins, depend on manual enrollment processes, or activate too late to influence the patient’s immediate next step.

This becomes especially important in therapeutic areas where treatment pathways are complex, out-of-pocket costs are variable, or prior authorization requirements are common. A patient may be clinically appropriate for therapy, but still face uncertainty around coverage, cost or timing. A provider may want to support the patient, but may not have the time, tools or staff capacity to troubleshoot access at the point of care.

This is where embedded access can create practical value. Moving closer to prescribing means giving providers, patients and support teams clearer access signals earlier in the process and within EHR-connected health system workflows. It means connecting access resources to the prescribing, education, and patient decision-making moments that already occur in clinical workflows.

Why Commercial Strategy and Access Strategy Need Earlier Alignment

Commercialization, access, and measurement strategies are often planned across different teams, even though they directly influence one another. Brand teams focus on positioning and engagement. Market access teams focus on payer dynamics, coverage and affordability. Patient services teams build support programs. Analytics teams determine what can be measured after launch.

In practice, these functions are deeply connected. At Flora Health, we see the strongest access strategies come together when commercialization, workflow integration, data intelligence and measurement are part of the same operating model. Brand strategy is stronger when it accounts for the real access barriers patients may face after a prescription is written. Patient support is more useful when embedded access can activate earlier and align with the way care teams already work. Marketing engagement is more effective when it connects awareness to the practical steps that help patients move forward. Measurement becomes more valuable when it is tied to health system workflows, giving teams better visibility into where access support is reaching patients, where engagement is occurring and where friction remains. When media, access, and data are connected earlier, access support becomes part of the commercialization architecture.

A Practical Framework for Quicker, More Connected Patient Access

For pharmaceutical companies, patient access efficiency is now a commercial priority. A more connected model needs to help access support work faster, fit more naturally into provider workflows and help patients start therapy with less friction. Connected access support can help providers, patients, hubs and manufacturers work from better information, fewer manual steps and clearer next actions. A practical framework includes four steps:

First, understand where HCPs sit and how that system operates. As of January 1, 2026, 82.0% of U.S. physicians were employed by hospitals or corporate entities, according to Physicians Advocacy Institute and Avalere Health.¹ Health systems run on centralized workflows and EHR structures. Field and access teams need to understand that infrastructure directly. The right question is whether the right person can use the right resource at the right time with minimal disruption to the system’s workflow.

Second, identify where support can create value before prescribing. Before a prescription is written, awareness, education and data help shape whether a therapy is considered and whether the care team has the information needed to act with confidence. For some therapies, that may mean earlier education on coverage and affordability. For others, it may mean reaching the right decision-makers inside the health system with information that supports clinical and access readiness.

Third, connect post-prescription support to the workflows that determine speed to therapy. Once a prescription is written, the next steps often involve benefits verification, prior authorization, affordability, pharmacy coordination, hub support and patient follow-up. This is where embedded access can reduce manual steps and help each stakeholder work from better information. Workflow-connected signals can also show whether patients are moving from prescription to therapy start, and where additional support may be needed.

Fourth, use data intelligence to improve the access model over time. Insights from both sides of the prescription should inform messaging, channel strategy, field priorities, patient support design and partner selection. If patients are slowing down at a specific point, engagement can be refined there. If EHR integration or AI-enabled workflows are reducing time, effort or administrative burden, those signals can inform broader investment. Measurement is most valuable when it helps teams make better decisions.

Why Does This Matter Now?

Access strategies are strongest when they reduce work for the care team. Access support must be closer to prescribing, more connected and more useful. Commercial teams need to connect message delivery with patient access, EHR integration, data intelligence and measurement so engagement supports the patient journey more directly.

For pharma, the next phase of patient access will be defined by how well the industry can integrate support into the health system workflows where prescribing happens. That means giving care teams tools that fit their workflow, giving patients more certainty before they leave the office, and giving commercial teams better visibility into where access strategies are working and where they need to improve.

The opportunity is to reduce steps, time, and effort so providers, patients and pharmaceutical teams can move with greater clarity. When patient access support is connected earlier, embedded within EHR-connected workflows and measured in context, it helps patients move one step closer to therapy before they leave the care setting.

Karina Castagna is chief growth officer at Flora Health.

Reference

1. Physicians Advocacy Institute and Avalere Health. "Physician Employment Trends and Practice Acquisitions 2018–2026." May 2026. Accessed July 15, 2026.