Every January, Glaucoma Awareness Month highlights the importance of early diagnosis and treatment to help prevent permanent vision loss. More than four million Americans have glaucoma, but nearly half don’t realize it.
Glaucoma causes gradual vision loss without noticeable symptoms until up to 40% of sight is already lost. By then, the damage is irreversible. That’s one reason prescription engagement strategies are critical when a patient is diagnosed with glaucoma.
Here’s the challenge with glaucoma: Patients feel perfectly fine even as their vision deteriorates.
The result is a preventable crisis—a treatable condition that remains a leading cause of blindness because patients don’t start or stay on prescribed medications. In a study of patients who self-reported on adherence, less than half (46%) reported never missing a dose. The study further revealed a “clinically significant relationship between medication adherence and glaucomatous vision loss over 8 years.”
Three critical moments stand in the way of onboarding and adherence:
Each drop-off point represents the potential for prescription abandonment. More importantly, those points can determine whether a patient keeps moving toward preventable blindness.
Given the inherent adherence challenges when patients are asymptomatic, engagement needs to begin as early as possible. Where should you start?
The most effective moment for intervention happens before the patient leaves the exam room. When prescribers have access to brand-specific, real-time intelligence within their EHR workflow—prior authorization requirements, specialty pharmacy routing needs, available copay assistance—they can proactively address barriers during the appointment.
When this information is built into the prescribing workflow, physicians can handle issues without having to navigate multiple systems or make phone calls. And patients are less likely to abandon prescriptions because they understand what to expect at the pharmacy, know financial help is available, and leave the visit with realistic expectations about timing and process.
Reaching patients right after they leave the doctor’s office works because that’s when they’re most motivated. A personalized message can include educational content explaining glaucoma’s silent progression, information about financial assistance, and direct links to other support resources.
The results are significant. Patient engagement in these critical moments achieves 73%-85% response rates compared to traditional outreach tactics at 15%-20%. This approach ensures spending on programs to boost awareness turns into measurable prescription lift when prescribing decisions are made. Immediate intervention prevents patients from falling through cracks before they start therapy.
Patients trust their own healthcare providers significantly more than pharmaceutical companies or payers. When messages arrive from patients' physicians rather than an unfamiliar source, they are more likely to engage. In fact, 59% of patients prefer getting health information from their doctors.
The key is workflow integration that requires zero added effort from prescribers. Messages are triggered automatically through EHR integration and sent on behalf of the provider, keeping the trusted relationship while delivering pharmaceutical brand resources and support.
Tips that help patients manage side effects can address concerns before they stop taking their medication. Educational resources emphasizing the value of early treatment, rather than fearmongering, help patients stay motivated. For example, an infographic about what progressive vision loss looks like can help patients understand why treatment is important even if they don’t have noticeable vision impairment.
Refill reminders can improve adherence too, but timing matters. Generic, calendar-based reminders will miss the mark. Instead, messaging tied to actual prescription patterns, such as when a patient should be running low, when a refill is due, or when a prescription expires, creates relevant touchpoints to drive adherence over time.
Why does this matter? The Support, Educate, Empower (SEE) coaching program (University of Michigan Kellogg Eye Center) for patients diagnosed with glaucoma improved adherence to 81% among patients who self-reported poor adherence. Follow-up with those patients a year later found that while adherence had declined, it was significantly higher than pre-program adherence, suggesting that well-timed messages—beyond first fills—help keep patients on track with their prescribed therapy.
Cost is a key driver of prescription abandonment. When patients discover high out-of-pocket costs at the pharmacy counter, many simply walk away.
Real-time benefit verification and embedded prior authorization support during the prescribing workflow enable doctors to discuss affordability during the visit. This can prevent prior authorization or financial barriers from causing therapy abandonment.
Traditional support programs rely on patients to take the first step: searching websites for educational materials, enrolling in support programs, or calling hubs or nurse navigators. These steps often feel onerous and confusing, especially when patients have no symptoms—and no urgency—to start or stay on therapy.
By engaging providers upstream in the EHR workflow, prescription engagement supports real-time decisions. This is complemented by downstream tactics to engage patients moments after they leave the doctor’s office.
It also measures what matters. Unlike awareness campaigns that track website visits or content downloads, prescription engagement strategies capture real-world evidence (RWE) for outcomes like:
For patients, improved adherence can slow or halt disease progression, helping them maintain better vision and quality of life as they age.
How does this help pharmaceutical manufacturers?
Glaucoma Awareness Month is an opportunity to go beyond disease awareness to treatment awareness. By implementing proven prescription engagement strategies, pharmaceutical manufacturers can help prevent blindness and drive measurable brand performance.
Ready to see how TimelySM by DrFirst® brings focus to your prescription engagement tactics? Let’s talk about how you can build strategies that drive tangible results.