Scout supports research sites when every dollar (and delay) counts.
Last week, the Society for Clinical Research Sites (SCRS) released its latest Site Landscape Survey. For anyone working at a trial site, the findings won’t come as a surprise. They confirm what many site teams already know from lived experience: the operational and financial challenges of running a clinical trial haven’t gone away. In fact, many are getting worse.
According to the data, 50% of research sites have three months or less of operating capital, and only 32% reported a profit margin over 10%. At the same time, sites are dealing with delayed payments, overdue receivables, and underfunded trial budgets—especially for items like prescreening, screen failures, startup costs, and training.
In practice, that means real people—site staff—are being stretched to the edge while trying to hold studies together.
Clinical trials are built on the backs of site teams. Coordinators, finance leads, investigators, patient-facing staff—they’re the ones chasing down documents, booking last-minute travel, fielding reimbursement questions, and navigating budgets that rarely reflect what it actually takes to keep things running.
The survey showed that one-third of sites have more than 90 days’ worth of overdue receivables. Think bigger than a line item in a report—this represents hours of manual follow-up, tough conversations with finance, and the stress of covering costs upfront without knowing when (or if) they’ll be reimbursed.
This is more than money. It’s irreplaceable time and bandwidth. When a coordinator is spending half a day booking flights or tracking down a $35 stipend, that’s time pulled from patient visits, data entry, and study integrity.
It's precisely the burden Scout Clinical was built to relieve.
We’re not in the business of creating more systems for sites to manage. Rather, our role’s to take whole categories of work off your plate so your team can focus on running the study, not running interference.
If you haven’t already seen it, Scout for Sites lays out how we help with patient payments, travel, and logistics—and how our services can be adapted to fit your specific needs, whether you're operating as part of a health system, a private practice, or a dedicated research site.
Late or confusing payments create friction with patients and add hours of work for site teams. Scout handles everything from processing stipends to managing international tax compliance, so you don’t have to.
For site staff, that means fewer back-and-forth emails, fewer questions from confused participants, and fewer late-night reconciliations.
When a participant needs a flight, a caregiver needs a hotel, or plans change at the last minute, the pressure lands squarely on site staff. That’s where we come in.
You tell us the need, we take it from there. And when something goes sideways (because it always does), our team is available 24/7 to handle it directly with the participant.
Every site team has a story about the thing that went wrong at 6:00 p.m. on a Friday. With Scout, you don’t have to take that call.
Our Patient Liaison team is on standby around the clock. We handle travel issues, payment concerns, and logistics problems so your staff doesn’t have to stay late or scramble after hours. It’s real relief, not just a hotline, and definitely not a call center.
Sites can work with us either through sponsor contracts or by contracting with Scout directly. Both options are designed to minimize friction and maximize flexibility.
Beyond just “getting the service,” it’s about making it easy to justify and simple to get started.
Every task we take on is one less thing your team has to do manually. That’s how we help protect your staff’s time, your participants’ experience, and your site’s bottom line.
When the industry talks about “supporting sites,” this is what that actually looks like with Scout.
If you’re feeling the pressure (and chances are, you are) get in touch with us. We’d love to show you how it feels when someone else shares up the load.