Bring Your CRM In-House, or Watch Your Patient Support Crumble

Frontier-IQ
Apr 29
3 min read

Updated: 2 days ago

Most life sciences companies are still surrendering control of their patient support services to third-party hubs. They hand over their most valuable asset – patient relationships – to vendors who lock them into proprietary systems, drain their budgets, and block access to critical data.

It's time to call this what it is: a strategic disaster.

An unmistakable trend is emerging across the industry. Forward-thinking companies are reclaiming control of their CRM and patient support software by bringing operations in-house. They're not just saving money – they're transforming patient outcomes.

The Hidden Cost of Outsourcing Your CRM

When you outsource your CRM, you're signing away more than software management. You're surrendering:

When outsourcing your CRM, you're signing away more than software management. You're surrendering

Complete data ownership. That third-party hub controlling your CRM isn't just managing your patient data—it's holding it hostage. According to Gartner, poor data quality costs organizations an average of $12.9 million annually, with healthcare facing even steeper consequences due to its critical accuracy requirements¹. You can't ensure quality when you don't control your data.

Flexibility to choose support providers. That "comprehensive" hub solution locks you into their support personnel, their processes, and their pricing structure. When their service deteriorates, you're stuck.

Negotiating power. With your patient support operations tied to a single vendor's CRM, switching costs become prohibitive. Healthcare organizations using purpose-built CRMs report cost reductions of up to 30% when they break free from third-party systems².

The "Free Software" Trap That's Costing You Millions

Hub companies deploy a classic bait-and-switch: "We'll give you the software and tech for free, BUT only in our environment and only with our support personnel."

"We'll give you the software and tech for free, BUT only in our environment and only with our support personnel."

This isn't generosity – it's a calculated strategy to create dependency. Once your operations are built around their system, switching costs become astronomical, and prices inevitably rise. Your "free" software becomes your most expensive decision ever.

The global healthcare CRM market is expected to reach $37.09 billion by 2032³, yet many organizations remain trapped in systems that weren't built for their specific needs. Meanwhile, 75-80% of healthcare facilities are seeking ways to modernize their technology stack⁴.

Take Control: The In-House CRM Advantage

Bringing your CRM in-house doesn't mean building everything yourself. It means:

You own the platform. Your team controls configurations, workflows, and integrations without waiting for a vendor's approval or paying exorbitant fees for simple changes.
You choose your partners. Do you need specialized support for a rare disease population or want to switch providers for a specific service? With your CRM in-house, you connect with whoever delivers the best results—not whoever your hub provider has on contract.
You own your data. Every patient interaction, every support call, every adherence metric becomes your strategic asset – not locked in someone else's system. Studies show healthcare organizations with direct data control can reduce their time-to-insight by leveraging integrated data sources⁵.
You set the timeline. No more waiting months for your hub to implement critical changes to support workflows. Modern healthcare CRMs can be implemented in as little as 2-4 weeks for small to mid-sized operations⁶, not the 6-12 months typical with outsourced solutions.

But What About Implementation Risk?

The old argument against bringing CRM in-house was implementation complexity. That's no longer valid.

Modern purpose-built healthcare CRM platforms like Patient-Focus™ deploy in weeks, not years. According to implementation specialists, CRM deployments that once took 11-12 months can now be completed in as little as 10 days with the right platform and approach⁷. They're designed for configuration by business users, not IT specialists.

The implementation risk now lies with staying tethered to outdated hub solutions, not with taking control.

Take Control Now

Patient-Focus™ is built specifically as an enabler for companies ready to take control of their patient support services. Unlike retrofitted sales platforms, our solution was designed from the ground up for patient journeys.

Your company deserves better than surrendering control to third-party hubs, and your patients deserve better support than generic, retrofitted CRMs can provide.

Which will you choose: take control of your patient support services or continue surrendering your most valuable relationships to third parties?

Schedule a Demo →