One patient advocate had a patient who was prescribed Keytruda but due to financial hardship, he couldn’t afford the drug. The patient advocate used Atlas to enroll him in a Merck program which turned out to be very challenging due to many factors. Initially, the patient was denied, and the enrollment forms had changed requiring resubmission with additional income information to justify his need. Each time our patient advocate called the patient with updates, he lost more hope.

Three days before his scheduled infusion, the patient’s application was finalized, and the patient signed it digitally through Atlas. After another resubmission, our patient advocate discovered a wet signature was needed due to another new requirement. He escalated the case to a Merck supervisor who promised to push the application through if it was signed that day and then called the patient that afternoon. The patient didn’t have a scanner, lived two hours from the infusion center and couldn’t sign and fax the application from there to meet our deadline.

However, they worked together to find a solution: our patient advocate emailed him the application, and the patient printed, signed and faxed it back from a local Staples store. By coordinating directly with the Merck supervisor, they quickly secured approval and ordered the no-cost medication by that evening. When our patient advocate shared the good news, the patient broke down crying and thanked him repeatedly for not giving up on him.