Orphan drugs comprise about 20% of today’s pharmaceutical market and are expected to drive over 50% of new product launches moving forward. While attaining FDA approval for these new therapies can be life‑changing, true success depends on post‑approval KPIs—including patient access, adherence and safety, market adoption, and sustainability. All these success metrics rely on one often overlooked component: the patient enrollment form.
In retail pharmacy, the path from prescription to patient is a simple handoff. In specialty pharmacy, though, it’s more like a multi-party obstacle course that involves prescribers, patients, caregivers, pharmacists, and payers. For rare disease and high-cost therapies, the enrollment form isn’t just paperwork—it’s the trigger point that sets a complex, high-stakes system into motion. When poorly designed, it can short-circuit everything.
A small form with big impact
At first glance, the enrollment form seems simple. Yet within its pages lies the combination to unlocking enhanced operational efficiency and more precise patient interventions. It serves as the catalyst for a range of processes, including obtaining legal consents, patient outreach, benefits verification, care coordination, and financial support. Every field collected during this stage determines whether the process will flow smoothly or create unnecessary friction. Even minor delays and errors can slow turnaround time (TAT) and impact adherence, continuity, and patient trust.
AscellaHealth’s cautionary tale of two enrollment forms
With over two decades of experience serving patients with rare diseases, AscellaHealth’s multidisciplinary team has encountered a wide range of practices across dozens of new and breakthrough therapies. To illustrate the acute impact of form design, we’ve curated two examples that demonstrate how even small choices can lead to very different outcomes.
Company A, fast and loose.
To maximize patient engagement ahead of patent expiration, Company A increased its Salesforce by 30% and cut the enrollment form in half to reduce provider burden—but did so without the assistance of a specialty pharmacy partner. The shorter form omitted critical information needed to start patients on therapy efficiently.
What was intended to streamline the process ended up having the complete opposite effect. Missing consent language, incomplete insurance fields, and vague clinical indicators forced pharmacy teams to spend additional time tracking down missing information. Ultimately, appeals were unsuccessful, patients were redirected to assistance programs, and revenue declined.
Company B, expeditious and meticulous.
Company B was built around a performance-driven culture focused on collaboration and accountability—an approach reflected in the design of their enrollment form. A multidisciplinary team helped them evaluate the form not only for compliance, but also for workflow efficiency and patient impact.
Within a few months of launch, pharmacists and operations experts worked jointly with a leading research institution to identify bottlenecks and further refine form fields, ensuring that essential data for every state, payer, and patient profile was captured. The result: faster transitions, reduced rework, improved adherence, and measurable business gains.
Three tips to strengthen enrollment form design
- Collaborate early and often. Partner with specialty pharmacy operations, compliance, and provider relations teams from day one to capture what matters most.
- Design for accuracy, not brevity. Streamline only when you can preserve essential data and clarity – precision outperforms speed.
- Monitor and adapt. Track TAT, rejection rates, and onboarding feedback to identify gaps and proactively update forms.
Designing for the system, not just the script
The most efficient specialty pharmacies do more than maintain compliance—they act as strategic partners across the entire care ecosystem. They are configured to enhance the care model, not just capture a prescription. From day one, they anticipate payer requirements, support care teams, and ensure accurate reporting.
AscellaHealth knows that the biggest challenges to orphan drug performance often stem not from obvious errors, but from invisible friction, including:
- State compliance: States have specific rules and regulations. For example, Maryland requires new consent language each year. Without it, patient access stalls.
- Fragmented data sources: When specialty pharmacies interpret or record fields differently, analytics suffer.
- Provider fatigue: Unclear or redundant forms get deprioritized, slowing down the entire process.
- Operational disconnects: When sales teams update forms without informing pharmacy operations, mismatches and rework follow.
As therapies continue to advance, precision in execution matters more than ever. The enrollment form may seem insignificant, but it often determines whether patients receive timely, successful treatments.
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