2024 PatientsForce Patient Assistance Services Report

Journey management built on patient outcome value

Value-based healthcare, focused on patient treatment outcomes, is PatientsForce's guiding service philosophy. The PatientsForce team is committed to optimizing patient journey management — starting from clinical diagnosis, helping patients ease their treatment burden, integrating care resources, and supporting patients through to completion of their prescribed treatment course. Working hand in hand with a professional consulting and management team alongside pharmaceutical companies and other healthcare resource providers, and focusing primarily on major or long-term chronic disease care, we provide integrated services covering drug costs, finances, care, and resources for patients — a patient-centered journey management approach that improves patients' access to and affordability of medicine.

PAP as a critical bridge into NHI reimbursement

In 2024, the lessen patient burden plan run by Patientsforce continued to support nearly 60 drug support projects, spanning a range of therapeutic areas — mainly oncology drugs, immune-related disease treatments, and endocrine and metabolic disease medications.

Main drug categories in PatientsForce's drug support programs (as of 2024/12/31)

Based on the Ministry of Health and Welfare's cancer registry reports over the years, cancer remains the leading cause of death and has a profound impact on patients' and their families' quality of life. PatientsForce's patient support programs cover a wide range of cancer sites, with lung cancer and breast cancer being the most common among Taiwanese, and numerous self-paid drugs for these cancers are included within the scope of the programs.

PAP serves as a temporary bridge before a new drug receives NHI reimbursement — through the patient support programs provided by pharmaceutical companies, patients with fewer financial means can begin treatment early via physician referral. In 2024, about 16% of PAP project drugs were approved for NHI reimbursement or had their reimbursement scope expanded, allowing all or some patients to transition smoothly to NHI-covered treatment. Patientsforce plays the role of a third party in the public-private partnership of NHI, bringing NHI, private insurance, and support programs together to solve the timing gap between supply and demand in the pharmaceutical economy during the self-pay period after a new drug (or medical device) launches.
 

PatientsForce's drug volume share by cancer type (as of 2024/12/31)

PSP as a value service for the specialty medication patient journey

In the treatment journey of patients on specialty medication, case management is not just about tracking patients' follow-up visits — it is, more importantly, about managing patient events, which arise from clinical administrative paperwork, education and cultural differences among patients and caregivers, transportation and other barriers to care access, and the integrated management of care resources. PSP (Patient Support Program) works to narrow the gap between the "perfect protocol" assumed in clinical settings and real-world treatment conditions. In 2024, Patientsforce provided clinical patient assistance services for 17 medications, including ongoing outreach to patients ahead of follow-up visits, case services for companion diagnostics, and application and tracking management support for specialty-medication patients' NHI drug applications. In addition, Patientsforce partners with more than 40 major healthcare institutions across Taiwan to provide related testing support services, helping more than ten thousand patients cumulatively along their treatment journeys.

PatientsForce's ongoing patient assistance results become quantifiable social impact

PatientsForce has to date cumulatively helped nearly 60,000 patients, providing specialty medication cost-relief services worth more than NT$6 billion; over the past three years, an average of more than 10,000 new patients have been added each year, and the number continues to grow.

PatientsForce is actively deploying digital management services, letting patients complete various consent form signings via mobile phone, while drug management staff can also complete the patient medication pickup sign-off process online, improving the convenience of the application process. According to 2024 MediPASS (digital) service data, specific projects saw usage rates exceeding 80%, and the number of registered users has risen steadily year over year. The most frequently used features were service inquiries and applications (18%), recurring reminders (42%), and support resource inquiries (40%). Beyond making patient service management more efficient, this has also delivered environmental value by reducing paper use and journey-related carbon emissions.

A professional partner for international pharmaceutical companies running patient support programs

The PatientsForce team partners with international pharmaceutical companies. According to the 2024 Pharm Exec Top 50 Companies list published by Pharmaceutical Executive (US) in June 2024, more than 20 of these companies now have the PatientsForce team providing various Patient Solutions and jointly delivering patient support program services. This year, Patientsforce's Media-WIND Health Strategies won the SME Award in the Social Innovation category of the 2024 Global Views Monthly ESG Corporate Sustainability Awards, as well as the top prize for business model innovation among SMEs and the ESG Special Award at the 2024 Harvard Business Review Digital Transformation Awards. It also earned the EcoVadis badge, ranking in the global top 26% among other professional, scientific, and technical industries, and has committed to joining the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi) Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises (SMEs) 2030 net-zero commitment. Patientsforce is more than a drug supply chain service supporting patients — it is moving toward becoming a healthcare resource ecosystem service with real social impact!