As clinical trial designs become more and more complex, processing and tracking site payments is also becoming more challenging and complex. Over the years, clinical trial sites frequently report slow payments are a primary operating concern, with the potential to delay or even derail a study. And that challenge has likely only been exacerbated in the past two years as the pandemic required sites to stretch their resources further with new safety requirements, processes and procedures.
Delays in payments can create significant financial stress that impact the sites’ ability to perform key functions and keep the study on track. As such, delayed and / or inaccurate payments have the potential to impact relationships with clinical trials sites and reduce the likelihood of their willingness to participate in future studies. At the same time, in a survey released in 2017 by the Society for Clinical Research Sites (SCRS), site respondents reported that payment processes also directly impact the patients in a variety of ways. 1 Delayed payments to the site can cause delays in paying the patient, and at the same time, the delay can impact the ability of site to devote resources to patient screening and enrollment activities. Given the ongoing and increasing challenges with patient recruitment and retention in clinical research, the impact of late and incorrect payments can be a significant burden and detrimental to the success of a study.
According to the same survey, clinical research sites spend a considerable amount of time and resources on accounting tasks, and respondents indicated they highly valued tools and solutions provided by sponsors and CROs to improve and streamline accounting processes. In other studies conducted by SCRS, clinical research sites indicate they particularly value timely electronic payments, ideally within 30 days.
Managing payments manually through the duration of a clinical trial can be challenging. Manually reviewing and approving site payments typically lacks transparency and is often time consuming, costly and prone to errors. Money must be dispersed between dozens, if not hundreds, of sites at varying times. The larger and more complex the study, the more challenging it becomes. When research teams manage the process manually, the payments are more subject to error, delays and inaccurate payments.
iMednet designed its native payments module to address these issues and enable research teams to take full control of site payments. Seamlessly built into the comprehensive, EDC-centric iMednet platform, it enables automates the payment process so study administrators can easily apply site-specific study budgets, view and approve eligible payments and access a complete transaction history within the same platform. In a matter of minutes, sponsors or CROs are able to create robust, customized payment triggers across an entire study and for multiple sites. Leveraging iMednet Payments, study administrators can automatically populate default values when new sites are added and override default payments with site specific budgets if needed. The integrated module improves efficiency, streamlines tracking of all site payments and reduces the likelihood of human error.
As a native module, iMednet Payments is comprehensive, flexible, and secure – providing a seamless platform in which all payment management occurs in one place. This serves to further limit error while maximizing efficiency as other programs necessitate jumping from one system to another. Payment checkpoints, defined by Mednet as ‘triggers’, in iMednet Payments can be configured in minutes and rapidly applied across an entire study. The budget feature is fully customizable and can be created in a site-specific manner, delivering improved visibility, accountability and site satisfaction.
iMednet’s seamless module helps ensure a successful clinical trial requiring budgeting for both patient specific and non-patient specific payments. Users can easily monitor the transaction history page for access to real-time data and allow for filtering and exporting of a variety of reports, including progress reports, payment reports, and auditing reports. These capabilities provide the research team and / or study administrator with complete visibility to payment status across the entire study and multiple sites, ultimately improving efficiency and reducing the potential for error.
To learn more about the native iMednet Payments module, contact us.
- Site Payments and Patient Reimbursements: A Global Perspective. Society for Clinical Research Sites. April 2017. Available at https://myscrs.org/learning-campus/white-papers. Accessed March 16, 2022.