BIOLOGIC JOURNEY MAPPING

Project

Developed a comprehensive user journey map incorporating multiple stakeholders to analyze competitor behavior within the fulfillment process. Facilitated stakeholder and client reviews to identify key opportunities and inform strategic business decisions.

OVERVIEW

Coherus aims to enter the adalimumaba market with their own biosimilar. With the endeavor to find strategic business decisions to help streamline the fulfillment process and leverage key points of communications with healthcare providers and patients, to prescribe their biologic.

Process

Initially, I mapped the stages of the fulfillment journey based on prior experience with similar processes. However, after reviewing interview summaries conducted by strategists with healthcare providers (HCPs), patients, and clients with previous experience in fulfillment processes, it became clear that several stages required further breakdown and refinement.

While the original target audience focused on HCPs and patients, research revealed a critical gap. Once HCPs prescribe treatment, their involvement in the fulfillment process is minimal. Instead, office staff play a central role, particularly in navigating coverage checks and assuring fulfillment. As a result, we expanded our audience to include them and further developed the coverage checks stage to reflect the complexities of benefits verification and prior authorizations required to initiate treatment. We also included Payers (insurance) as an audience as there were key points in their journey that needed to be highlighted for our clients understanding.

I also simulated the patient experience by navigating the competitor’s fulfillment process firsthand. I got as far as talking with nurse representatives giving an account of the process if I were to proceed and provide more detailed information. This greatly help expand on the journey within the benefits verification process and prior authorizations.

The journey stages established:
1. Product Education
2. Patient Assessment
3. Treatment Decision
4. Benefits Verification (BV) and Prior Authorizations (PA)
5. Office Manager Sends Script to Speciality Pharmacy (SP)
6. Insurance Claim Processing
7. Medication Fulfillment
8. Delivery & Unboxing
9. Patient Training
10. Treatment Adherence and ongoing support

WOrkshop

Upon completing the competition's fulfillment journey, I help lead a client workshop to review findings and gather feedback. We used a large-scale printed version of the journey to allow participants to visualize the full experience and provide real-time annotations. Following the session, we digitized all feedback and discussions that were then consolidated and documented digitally.

The Results

Following the workshop, we incorporated all key ideas into a revised journey tailored to the client’s needs. Each initiative was detailed with dependencies, potential roadblocks, action plans, and designated owners. This effort enabled us to successfully pitch subsequent projects, including marketing campaigns, website development, and electronic benefits verification SaaS solutions.

Key Takeaways

It was exciting working with many strategists and clients on this project. We succeeded with our goal in helping our clients understand the landscape of the market they were entering into. The research was challenging in having to piece together the journey from an outside perspective, but it was a great moment when things fell into place and we realized the opportunities in some of the experiences that would help leverage our clients standing in the market.