Value Dossiers: a one-stop reference for all teams

A common pitfall for sales and market access teams is believing that the decision-maker already understands the Value of their medical technology or procedure.

The Value Dossier is the first of our products intended to accelerate our customer’s journeys toward commercialization and reimbursement. Let’s explore how Value Dossiers help convince decision-makers about the Value of medical technologies.

Sales aids rarely communicate Value

Product brochures and other marketing materials come with feature lists, high-level benefits statements, and complex diagrams that don’t translate well to a sales conversation. In addition, they provide little guidance for answering the most common questions from payers and providers: Why should I buy this technology? What problem does it solve? Why am I better off using this solution versus another?

It’s a common problem. Most companies don’t know how to translate statistics or evidence into value messages. And they can’t tell which features are most relevant for specific care settings or patient groups.

Value Dossiers fill this gap. They’re a reference for sales and market access teams about how a company’s products impact patient journeys in terms of clinical, economic, and organizational aspects.

Without a clear understanding of how medical technology impacts the business models of payers and providers, it isn’t easy to generate interest in it. And that is demonstrated with Value, not features.

And that is the reason we position Value Dossiers as the first product in the customer’s journey since its completion will guide the development of all value communication materials.

Structured to demonstrate Value

Value Dossiers are structured in three major sections: burden of disease, technical, clinical, and economical.

Value Dossiers should start describing the burden of the related disease and how the technology addresses an unmet need in healthcare. Maybe there is a high incidence of complications, diagnoses take too long to be determined, or treatments are ineffective and cost too much. Regardless of the need, this section is typically the most ignored by companies that jump right into describing how great their products are.

The technical part comes after describing the features of the technology or solution. Its primary intent is to address how to use the technology and the required infrastructure or learning curve.

The clinical section is the heart of a Value Dossier, a living section that should be updated at least once every year with the latest relevant publications. Here is a common mistake as well; companies in the early stage of commercialization ignore Value Dossiers because they lack clinical evidence. As a result, they miss the opportunity to identify and address specific clinical gaps and develop reactive “strategies” (note the brackets) to respond to questions with, take a guess, product features instead of Value.

Finally, the economic section will tie all previous areas together to quantify the product value. It is about demonstrating the impact of the product benefits on the unmet needs along the patient journey for all relevant stakeholders: from physicians and providers to payers and patients. Without numbers and costs, a value message cannot exist.

More than a reference, a guideline for Value

It is impressive how teams use different approaches and messages to describe the same medical technology.

Some appeal to “one-size-fits-all” message when everything turns into a nail if all you have is a hammer. A typical example:

 Purchaser: “Why should I pay for your product?”
Company: “Because doctors love it.”
Purchaser: “Fine, and why should I pay more for your technology when compared to other products?”
Company: “Because doctors love it, of course.”

Sounds familiar?

Another typical approach is to use published articles as a shield against all objections, even if they are entirely unrelated. For example, a commercial team meeting with a hospital to discuss a recent paper demonstrating how much their product can avoid complications. The problem is, what if this hospital claims to have almost no complications at all? How valuable would that paper be? Does that mean this commercial team could only engage with hospitals that acknowledge having high complication rates?

To avoid such discrepancy of approaches and the rabbit-hole syndrome, a Value Dossier will identify the most relevant claims to each target stakeholder and their supporting evidence and provide information to handle objections.

The more questions payers and providers have, the more interested they are. And Value Dossiers help teams become prepared for it.

It is never too early to build a Value Dossier

The earlier companies structure their value-based approach, the more they will differentiate in the mind of payers and providers. The value-based approach means planning the value messages to address real market needs along the patient journey, with the proper evidence to support it. Or identify the evidence needed to drive the value claims.

Indeed, a Value Dossier requires a much more complex approach than negotiating on price. On the other hand, the results speak for themselves for sales, reimbursement, and adoption. Companies using Value Dossiers have a much more structured and assertive approach to the market.

“The Value Dossier proved to be an invaluable tool to organize the evidence and guidelines around our product, identify its key value messages, and help our commercial partners to demonstrate its value.”

Catherine J. Pachuk, Ph.D
Executive Vice President, Chief Scientific Officer at Marizyme

Do you want to know more about developing your Value Dossier? Or how to ensure it is adopted and used across your organization?

Contact us to schedule a 30-minute conversation.
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