Travel services for clinical trials are particularly unique because of the complexities involved in maintaining confidentiality, HIPPA, GDPR and FDA compliance. All of Colpitts’ clinical coordinators work exclusively with clinical clients and patients. They are all GCP-certified and attend annual data security and compliance trainings to ensure they are up-to-date on the latest regulations. Colpitts’ site coordinator portal is HIPPA and GDPR compliant, encrypting and securely transmitting data. The portal maintains a high adoption rate and facilitates efficient and private communication between site coordinators and the Colpitts team.  

Colpitts has modernized patient expense management with reloadable Visa cards – another offering that has earned high adoption among trial sponsors. More than 95 percent of Colpitts clients utilize the reloadable Visa cards to credit per diem payments to trial participants. This ensures the trial participant has money available while traveling to site visits and enables a process of quickly crediting patients for any out-of-pocket expenses. Colpitts can immediately reload the patient’s card if lost or stolen, and remaining funds are easily transferred to a new card without financial or emotional stress for the patient.

“We have seen more than 150,000 transactions totaling in excess of $25M on the reloadable cards in the past 5 years,” said Colpitts Clinical Senior Vice President Jeanne Johnston. “Our pharmaceutical, biotechnology and clinical research organization partners are really looking at ways to improve the patient experience, and on top of that, reduce trial costs and time spent on administrative tasks.”

Colpitts Clinical was among the first in the United States and Europe to offer travel management services specifically for clinical trials and their sponsors. It also led the way in having a division of specially certified travel and expense coordinators dedicated to providing concierge type service to patients in clinical trials.  The experience of servicing 1000 trials has given the Colpitts team invaluable insight and expertise in clinical trial travel needs, including prepaid travel, accommodations, per diems, and reimbursement expense management and specialty services such as ground/air ambulance transportation, translator services and long-term relocations. Colpitts’ clients conduct a wide array of research to help discover treatments and cures for common and rare health conditions.

Colpitts is a pioneer in dedicated clinical trial travel and expense management for sponsors and patients. Direct Travel, Colpitts Parent Company, has offices throughout the United States, Canada and United Kingdom, with clinical headquarters in Norwood, Massachusetts and Edinburgh, Scotland.