What to Look For When Selecting An Investigator Payment Solution

By Dave Hine, Solutions Architect, Greenphire

On a weekly basis I have the pleasure of speaking with sponsor and CRO teams about managing global investigator payments. I love hearing their stories about how they're working now, the challenges they're facing, and processes and workarounds they've developed to get sites paid (and hopefully keep them happy). This is no easy feat as traditional investigator payment processes are manual, time-consuming and an administrative headache for both sponsors and sites.

I then showcase our technology, validating their processes but demonstrating how the entire workflow can be automated - reducing their workload from 1-3 hours per invoice down to nothing (some clients have told me they wished it only took 3 hours to review/approve/pay each invoice!). In many of my meetings, I get to see the physical "aha" moment - smiles, head nods, sighs of relief, and in some cases jaws literally drop when they see how much time and effort can be saved through automation.

However, too many times I've heard from sponsors that they went with a solution they thought would work - only to find out the "automation" is not so automatic - that customer support is outsourced, spreadsheets still need to be emailed back and forth and sites are still calling them asking, "when am I getting paid?" and when it finally does arrive asking, "what is this payment for?"

In an effort to help you avoid these situations, I have put together a list of things to consider when choosing to implement investigator payment technology: