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Postscripts Rx
Conversations Beyond the Prescription. Where pharma, HCPs, life science and digital health solutions meets patients—after the script is written. Conversations on digital health, engagement, and real-world impacts that are re-writing the future of patient engagement.
Postscripts Rx
How AI Voice Technology Is Transforming Pharmaceutical Patient Support
The healthcare landscape is being reshaped by a powerful new tool: AI voice agents. These conversational companions are addressing one of healthcare's most persistent challenges – medication non-adherence, which affects 50% of patients with chronic conditions and costs the US healthcare system over $300 billion annually.
Unlike traditional digital solutions that require technical proficiency, AI voice agents leverage natural conversation to provide timely medication reminders, education, and encouragement. For elderly patients, the visually impaired, or those with limited digital literacy, these voice-first interactions remove barriers to consistent medication management. Platforms like Medisafe Via exemplify this approach, offering multimodal support through voice-guided tracking that enhances accessibility while maintaining human-centered care.
The benefits extend throughout the healthcare ecosystem. Physicians currently spend over 15 hours weekly on prior authorizations alone – a leading contributor to burnout. AI voice agents embedded in EHR platforms can automate intake processes, verify insurance, and support authorization workflows, allowing clinicians to focus on patient care rather than paperwork. Mayo Clinic has already demonstrated remarkable success, with their AI voice program serving 450,000+ patients and achieving an 80% response rate while enabling care teams to prioritize those truly needing human intervention.
For underserved populations facing language barriers or limited technology access, voice agents provide multilingual support without requiring smartphones. For pharmaceutical companies, these technologies offer new channels for delivering personalized, brand-specific messaging beyond traditional representatives or digital advertisements. The micro-interactions facilitated by voice agents compound over time, building trust and driving deeper engagement with treatments.
As we look ahead, voice interfaces will increasingly become the foundation of patient experiences – not replacing human connection, but elevating it by making healthcare more scalable, proactive, and patient-centered. Have you considered how voice automation might transform your patient support strategy? Subscribe to Postscripts for more insights at the intersection of pharma technology and patient impact.
PostScripts Rx is not intended to constitute medical advice, nor is it intended to influence prescribing decisions or any other medical or clinical decision-making. All medical and clinical judgment and decision-making, prescribing decisions, and all related considerations remain exclusively the responsibility of providers and patients.
Welcome to Postscripts, a podcast exploring what happens after the first prescription. We cover the latest innovations in patient access, support, digital tools, HCP engagement and pharma marketing that drive better outcomes for patients. This podcast is for informational purposes only and does not constitute any medical advice or influence or should be used to influence any clinical decision-making. Patients should always consult their healthcare professionals. Welcome to the podcast. My name is Brian Carr. I'm the Senior Vice President of Marketing at Medisafe, although the opinions expressed here are my own and not necessarily those of Medisafe or any of its partners.
Speaker 1:What's interesting and what we're talking about today is using AI voice agents to really revolutionize pharma and patient experiences. You may know that artificial intelligence and voice technology are no longer these futuristic buzzwords. They're really becoming foundational components of a rapidly involving healthcare and life sciences ecosystem. From patient support to accelerating physician workflows, ai voice agents are emerging as cost-effective, scalable tools that significantly improve access, engagement and outcomes. In today's episode, we're really looking at five transformative ways we can expect AI voice agents to impact patients, healthcare providers and pharma companies. We'll follow that with real world examples how the technology is already making its mark, including compelling data already coming out from the Mayo Clinic. So one. Let's talk about enhancing medication adherence through conversational support. One of the most critical challenges in healthcare today is medication, not adherence. If you're listening to this podcast, you know all the stats. The World Health Organization estimates that adherence among patients with chronic diseases averages only 50%, even in developed countries, and the consequences are increased hospitalizations, disease progression and more than $300 billion in avoidable health care costs each year in the US alone and that comes from the New England Health Institute data. So enter AI voice agents. So these platforms serve as a human-centric conversational companions, providing timely reminders, education, encouragement to keep patients on their treatment journeys. For pharma marketers and patient engagement teams, these AI voice agents offer a scalable way to sustain touch points between visits, something apps or emails sometimes can struggle to achieve. For example, medisafe, we've launched our voice automation platform called Medisafe Via. This offers multimodal support through voice-guided medication tracking and education. It really does enhance accessibility for patients who may be even visually impaired or prefer voice-first interactions due to age or lifestyle constraints. I'll put a link to the MetaSafe via in the notes show.
Speaker 1:But what's interesting there is, you may you're going to see increased adoption of these AI voice agents going forward. I can envision a year from now. You know you're going to be waiting on the phone, maybe to wait to talk to your insurance company or whatever. Whatever company you're calling and they may be saying well, you're a number 25 in line. Do you want to opt in to talk to an automated voice agent right now? And I can imagine a lot of people, rather than waiting 25 slots, will say, yeah, let me try it out. Right, so you're going to see, because there's adoption and opt-in boxes and approvals that you have to do before any AI agent can be used to talk to you here in the US. So I can see the adoption. You know it use to talk to you here in the US. So I can see the adoption you know is definitely going to be coming in the next six to 12 months, I imagine.
Speaker 1:But here's another good reason is it's going to reduce administrative burden for HCPs and clinics. You see a study by the American even the American Medical Association, physicians now spend more than 15 hours weekly on prior authorization and nearly 90% report that it's the administrative burden that is a leading source of burnout for them. But so you can imagine if there's AI voice agents that are embedded into EHR platforms or even virtual call systems. They can assist by collecting pre-visit patient data, verifying insurance, directing the appointment scheduling and even supporting prior authorization workflows right with insurance companies, so by automating the intake and policy verification. These agents really these voice automated voice agents can reduce the back and forth between the HCPs and payers and patients, really allowing clinicians the time to focus more on care delivery, not on data gathering. And already you're going to see some infusion centers and specialty clinics have begun using voice assistants to pre-stream the patients for eligibility or to confirm treatment schedule. Updates may even be hey, this is the appointment where we're going to have a blood draw. Be ready for that. Or we need you to bring in a urine sample. You can do that all through a voice agent reaching out and leaving messages or coming in and having a one you know, conversational, directional conversation with a patient, even though it's an automated voice agent. Also, you're going to see improving access and support for underserved populations. Language barriers, digital literacy and even mobility and limitations can prevent underserved populations and patients from really receiving quality care.
Speaker 1:You've got AI voice agents, particularly those accessible by phone. They can bridge these gaps, particularly if they're doing some of the automation and what we would call rote tasks. They're not giving out medical advice or making medical decisions. They're taking care of some of that paperwork or checking in with a patient. Hey, did you make it to the pharmacy today? No, I couldn't get a ride. Do you need a Uber or Lyft or another ride share? Maybe that's the type of thing that can be arranged all automatically.
Speaker 1:A voice agent, as opposed to you know having to interact with a doctor or a nurse and take up their time to arrange some transportation. So voice agents can interact in multiple languages as well and deliver personalized experiences without the need for high-tech smartphones, and even function offline in some cases, right Particularly where, if it's calling the same patient we literally have and you can see an example with Medisafe hey, you know this is not a good time to call. Please don't call until after you know 6.30 at night, or even call me between 6.30 and 7 o'clock at night only. Don't call me any other time. You can actually instruct the agents, who will then obviously take that into account next time they do a call, all automatically through AI. You know, a Spanish-speaking patient can engage with a voice agent, understand side effects, receive follow-up care without having to visit a clinic, or, you know, a portal. So this technology ensures equity, but it isn't just a buzzword. It really becomes part of the care delivery infrastructure, and pharma innovation teams focusing on inclusive access can now integrate voice-driven solutions into clinical trial, recruitment, ongoing patient engagement strategies and even onboarding in titrations.
Speaker 1:Right, and you know, often we'll talk to companies when they know okay, week three is a particularly challenging week when people start this medication. You can do voice agents that you know, preempt that and say by the way, you know, it's week two. Often week three can be a little bit more complex. Reach out anytime you have any challenges or questions to your patient support team. We're here at any time, right? There's also one of the four impacts you're going to see is continuous monitoring and data collection for patient support.
Speaker 1:Ai agents are offering that discrete, low-maintenance way to collect real-time feedback from patients, especially those on complex regimens or with chronic conditions. Post-discharge follow-ups, symptom tracking, emotional check-ins all can be enabled through natural spoken language conversations that not only enhance the patient experiences, it generates anonymized insights for manufacturers to refine their patient support programs, identify adherence trends, like I mentioned. Second and third week may be difficult and trigger interventions. So you imagine a rheumatoid arthritis patient, for example, stating that they're experiencing new joint swelling, and the voice agent triggers a care team alert or a cross-check with a recent refill data, and the care team can contact them immediately and you have a human-to-human interaction, not an AI-driven one. Mayo Clinic piloted such a tech and an innovative initiative highlighted by MIT Sloan in 2023. What they did is their AI voice bot program served over 450,000 patients with follow-up calls and achieved an amazing 80% response rate, and it really enabled the care teams to triage only those really needing human intervention, showing that AI and staffing can coexist to improve care. And this is from a study from the Sloan Management Review in 2024.
Speaker 1:And the fifth and final impact we're seeing is driving scalable personalization for pharma marketers. Right. So AI voice agents really give pharma marketers and commercialization teams that new channel for delivering personalized, brand-specific messaging, but without the limitations of physical reps or the digital fatigue of display ads and portals. So you can imagine a voice agent talking to a patient that has opted in for more information on this new medication they've received. Right so a voice agent can educate a patient about potential side effects of, say, an oncology therapy, and it can prompt them about important lab tests or sharing motivational stories based on where they are in the treatment journey.
Speaker 1:These what we call micro-interactions, and just-in-time interventions is what we call them at Medisafe. They compound over time to really build trust. So when you see this natural language understanding some people call it NLU marketers can really segment conversational pathways based on intent, emotion and content preference. This allows message tuning not just by demographic, but also by behavior. Plus, it's all HIPAA compliant infrastructure, you know, with a HIPAA compliant infrastructure that ensures privacy and data protection from all of these. And it's all opt-in. So you can't have a situation in the United States where an AI agent is calling you without you having opt-in to receive that.
Speaker 1:But you can imagine a scenario hey, you've just been prescribed this medication. Would you want to have a call to check in on you or your parents or your loved one, just to check symptoms and make sure everyone's staying on track? Right, you can see where people might adopt that, especially if they're hearing it and when they go through a call for the first time, it really can be a pleasant experience because it is really very similar to talking to a human. So these voice platforms the other thing is they can be white-labeled or integrated into a branded hub, find a farmer and extend the tentacles deeper into the patient journey, maintain a compliance, meaningful engagement, all approved through MLR, with certain scripts and a pool of data and responses that are approved. So where they go from here? You know voice is the most natural human interface right. So, as people become comfortable speaking to these smart assistants, pharmaceutical brands, acps and patient support programs have an opportunity to meet them right here with empathy, answers and intelligence.
Speaker 1:Ai voice agents are poised to really become programmable members of the care team, whether helping a liver patient manage side effects or assisting a busy oncology nurse with scheduling. Voice is no longer auxiliary. It's really becoming foundational, fundamental infrastructure. It's both a technical opportunity and a branding one for pharma, because being present in the moments of need, conversationally and contextually, will differentiate those leading therapies and brands and support teams from the rest. That's where tools like what we have with Medisavia they really are paving the way by adding voice automation to medication management, building adherence into everyday routines through seamless interaction.
Speaker 1:In closing, you know realizing that potential of AI voice agents is. Let's just take a quick recap on those high potential areas where they can deliver value right now and really continue to reshape health experience. One medication adherence right For the conversational reminders and support guiding patients through the complex therapies. Two, real administrative efficiency. You're seeing studies on this already from Mayo Clinic. We're relieving HCPs, clinics and infusion centers from repetitive intake and scheduling tasks. Health equity and access. You know, reaching digitally underserved populations through multilingual and device agnostic experiences. Four, the continuous data collection, with privacy protocols in place, really lights up a new layer of real-time, insight-driven feedback loops from patients to care teams, and that helps all. And finally, farmer personalization and brand connection driving deeper engagement using conversational marketing reminders and education at the brand level.
Speaker 1:You know, and as the space involves AI, voice agents're going to be increasingly embedded not only into patient journeys but into people's journeys. You're going to be dealing with insurance companies and banks, and even pizza. You know you're going to order a pizza. Do you know what you want on it? That's a repetitive task you could do through a voice agent and order can go through. There's not necessarily that you have to talk to a human at a pizza chain. That's making it right. So they're not going to replace human interaction, but they'll elevate it by making care more scalable, proactive and patient-centered.
Speaker 1:So for those of us in pharma, marketing, digital health or patient services. Now really is the time that we are really exploring how AI could integrate into all these strategies. Every spoken word could be a step forward to a healthier tomorrow. So I want to thank you for joining us on our Postscripts podcast this morning or this afternoon, depending where you are. If you found it valuable, please follow or subscribe for more insights at the intersection of pharma technology and patient impact. Until next time, this is Brian telling you to keep looking forward. The real work begins after the script is written.
