How patient support programs are addressing drug costs in 2025

Studies show that, without financial assistance, nearly a third of patients are unable to afford their medications. A 2024 KFF poll found that 28% of adults polled struggle to pay for their prescription drugs—and that statistic rises to 37% for those taking four or more.  

Further, when patients can’t pay for their medication, it can lead to adherence challenges. KFF revealed that about 30% of adults did not take them as prescribed during the past year due to cost sensitivities. Others don’t fill their prescriptions or opt for over-the-counter remedies instead. Some divided pills in half or skipped regular doses as result. These behaviors can affect outcomes and overall costs, leading to more expensive and cascading medical problems and treatment needs.  

Luckily, patient support programs (PSPs) administered by pharmaceutical firms and third-party vendors provide services that can subsidize expenses and facilitate other services that help patients start and stay on medication. Effective PSPs lead to positive clinical outcomes and patient satisfaction.  

A recent Guidehouse survey of pharmaceutical executives reveals that, though beneficial and widely used, these programs can still be improved to enhance their impact.  

Keep reading for more findings related to drug costs and click the button below to download the full trends report. 

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The demands and challenges 

Guidehouse’s Q1 2025 survey of 35 executives across PSP and market access roles at pharmaceutical firms detailed the challenges and opportunities of running PSPs and offered insights into programs that are ripe for investment and improvement.  

The survey found PSPs that alleviate the burden of medication costs are in high demand. In fact, 80% of executives surveyed said that copay assistance was the most used and popular PSP they offered, with 69% suggesting that patient access and affordability programs (PAPs) were most utilized. These findings were not shocking, given that drug costs remain persistently high, especially when combined with economic inflation. 

But there are other roadblocks to PSP effectiveness, in spite of the pharmaceutical firms and third-party vendors’ best intentions. Inefficient programs can create bottlenecks that lengthen and frustrate the patient journey, complicating what should be a tool that makes medication access easier. PAPs were cited by survey respondents among the top 5 programs that cause bottlenecks in patient care when underperforming.  

The full potential of PSPs also can’t be realized if patients aren’t aware they are available. One executive shared in our survey that because patients don’t know PSPs exist for each product, “copay assistance programs are underutilized across most therapeutic areas.” The executive recommended that patient marketing and education is needed to better promote these programs, and should be a joint effort between manufacturers, physicians, and pharmacists.  

Opportunities and user experience 

Beyond copays and medication cost assistance, pharmaceutical firms and PSP vendors may be able to make a greater impact by mitigating costs related to travel and pre-treatment requirements. This is especially important for complex (and potentially costly) cell and gene therapies, drug-device combinations, and psychedelic treatments. Ancillary and out-of-pocket costs can be a significant access barrier for these therapies.  

This type of support is critical for at-risk populations, which represent another challenge for PSP leaders: 52% of Guidehouse respondents indicated that programs serving this demographic need improvement. In addition to travel support, that can include language assistance and other materials adapted to a patients’ culture.  

Pharmaceutical firms should also understand that affordability and access are directly tied to enabling a positive patient experience. In the Guidehouse survey, the top two programs leading to a positive patient experience were patient access and affordability programs (at 78%) and copay assistance (at 70%).  

Patient access and affordability tied with reimbursement support for improving the physician experience (at 77%), followed by copay assistance programs at 72%. This is important as the provider experience can influence prescribing decisions and patient medication adherence. Prior authorization in particular can be a difficult process for physicians. A study of U.S. medical providers published in the American Journal of Managed Care found that providers may avoid prescribing a treatment that requires prior authorization, even for clinically appropriate drugs, due to the administrative difficulty involved. PSPs can be developed and fine-tuned for exactly this reason, benefitting both patients and providers through improved access. 

PSPs can have a real impact on adoption and adherence of medications. Pharmaceutical firms have an opportunity to improve outcomes by investing and innovating through these critical programs. To find out more about the trends impacting PSP success, read Guidehouse’s 2025 Patient Support Programs Trends report.