ARCHŌADVOCACY PATIENT SUPPORT BENCHMARK

THE ARIADNE CONNECTION INDEX

Why Ariadne? In Greek myth, Ariadne gave Theseus a thread to help him find his way out of the labyrinth. We use it as a symbol for the path from referral to support that helps.

Does support reach
the person who needs it?

A five-step self-assessment for patient support teams. Score what a patient can actually see and experience—from understanding the service to knowing whether it helped.

Start your assessment

THE STORY BEHIND THE INDEX

A yellow sheet led to support.
She still had to find it.

In a Building the Noise conversation, patient advocate Megan Claire-Chase recalled receiving a stack of papers and brochures after her cancer diagnosis. A plain yellow sheet caught her eye. It named an oncology social worker connected to her oncologist—a resource she hadn’t known was available to her.

She called and found financial help and support she might otherwise have missed. But she had to notice the sheet and make the call herself. That gap between support being available and a person becoming connected to it is why we built the Ariadne Connection Index.

Hear Megan tell the story

TWO DISTINCT EVIDENCE LAYERS

What the evidence can tell us

ELAVAY captures advocate perspectives on patient assistance programs. The public materials review scores what programs disclose. They answer different questions.

ELAVAY 2025–26 advocate ratings (Chapter 18)

Related signals, with clear limits

The September 14, 2026 executive-summary deck reports ten company-level means for patient assistance program ratings. The ranges below summarize those displayed means; the medians are unweighted across the ten means, not pooled respondent scores.

PAP education and how to use the program 3.75–4.92 / 7 Unweighted median of company means: 4.06
Support applying for PAP aid 3.36–5.08 / 7 Unweighted median of company means: 4.54
Selected ongoing communication as an improvement priority 57.94% Chapter 18 improvement question · N=126

Patient priorities: In the “most valuable elements” question (N=122), financial/copay assistance was selected by 57.38%, education/guidance by 22.95%, simpler enrollment/application support by 10.66%, and prior authorization support by 9.02%.

Perceived program impact: Asked whether PAPs aid in mitigating social determinants of health (N=126), 44.44% answered yes, 48.41% unsure, and 7.14% no. This is a broad view of PAP impact, not feedback after a specific connection.

How Chapter 18 maps to the five steps

01 · Explain the servicePartially supported

Education/how-to ratings are related, but do not measure whether a patient received an explanation during a specific connection.

02 · Introduce the providerPublic evidence only

No Chapter 18 item measures introducing a specific support person or showing the patient how to reach them.

03 · Ask permission for outreachPublic evidence only

No Chapter 18 item measures consent for proactive outreach.

04 · Assign follow-throughPartially supported

Application-support ratings and communication priorities are related; neither measures assigned ownership or reliable follow-up.

05 · Ask whether the connection helpedPublic evidence only

The SDOH question measures broad perceptions of PAP impact, not whether a specific connection helped a patient.

Descriptive figures from the ELAVAY 2025–26 executive-summary deck dated September 14, 2026. The deck’s methodology labels 4 “industry average”; questionnaire item 18.1 defines the endpoints as 1 (strongly disagree) and 7 (strongly agree), without a separate midpoint label. Because those descriptions do not fully align, these ranges are shown as source-reported values without treating 4 as a validated midpoint or sector norm. The rating table reports N=127 overall and does not show item-level respondent counts.

Public program materials review

What programs disclose publicly

5.5/10

The existing public-materials review reports this comparison across 20 pharma and medtech support programs.

This is not an ELAVAY score. A zero means a step was not evidenced in the public materials reviewed; it does not mean the program never provides that support.

FIVE STEPS · TEN POINTS

Score the connection

Answer for the process patients can see today—not the process your team hopes to build.

01Explain the service

Can a patient understand what the service does and what kind of help to expect?

02Introduce the provider

Does the patient know who will provide the support and how to reach them?

03Ask permission for outreach

Is permission clear before the program contacts the patient proactively?

04Assign follow-through

Does someone own the next step after a referral or enrollment?

05Ask whether it helped

Does the patient get a chance to say whether this connection made a difference?

HOW TO READ YOUR SCORE

Measure the connection,
not the distribution.

The Ariadne Connection Index translates a patient’s path to support into five observable steps: explain the service, introduce the provider, ask permission, assign follow-through, and ask whether the support helped.

The 5.5/10 comparison reflects what 20 selected pharma and medtech programs disclose publicly. It is separate from ELAVAY. A score of zero means a step was not evidenced in the reviewed public materials; it does not mean the program never does it.

Read the public-evidence benchmark