In research studies, participant payments and compensation are critical to study retention, ethics compliance, and efficiency.
Running these payments effectively requires great tools and a clear organizational structure that ensures accountability, compliance, and simple, seamless execution.
A three-tiered administrative hierarchy is an effective model for managing research payout systems. It balances control, oversight, and operational ease at all levels from enterprise-level strategy to day-to-day study execution.
By combining flexibility, compliance, and participant-focused features, TruCentive offers a leading solution for research study payout administration.
Many research teams still use fragmented and manual workflows when dealing with payouts.
This approach can potentially lead to delayed and/or missed payments, compliance gaps (HIPAA, SOC2 Type 2, IRS reporting) and a wasteful and Inefficient use of staff time
A three-tiered hierarchy brings clarity to roles and responsibilities, ensures proper approvals at each level, and leverages automation for speed and accuracy. TruCentive makes it simple to run clinical payments that are compliant and secure.
This hierarchy ensures that decisions are made at the right level. Compliance is maintained and helps ensure that errors are minimized across multiple studies.
At the top of the hierarchy are the Enterprise Administrators that have top-level responsibility for a research organization’s entire research payout environment.
Key Responsibilities:
User and Access Management
Fund Management
Operational Oversight
Enterprise Administrators serve as the overall architects and gatekeepers for both compliance and control. They have centralized oversight of the payout system.
They guide the individual department administrators in best practices and in aligning with the organization’s principles.
Enterprise Administrators have the overall responsibility and authority to monitor the system and prevent errors that could cascade across multiple studies and departments.
Department Administrators act as the bridge between enterprise-level strategy and the Principal Investigators and Coordinators responsible for individual study execution. They create the basis for individual studies and manage the personnel, budgets, funding and creative direction of individual studies.
Key Responsibilities:
Budgetary Oversight
Study Management
Operational Efficiency
Department Administrators are the central layer of financial accountability and management oversight. They ensure studies are appropriately funded, staffed with competent personnel, and that the logistics are operationally ready.
Department Administrators guide the Principal Investigators and Coordinators in administrative matters relating to payout and remove friction for coordinators and investigators by streamlining administrative processes and enforcing financial discipline.
Principal Investigators and Coordinators, who manage the daily execution of the payout system, have access and responsibility for individual studies. They handle the authority for approving research participant payouts, compliance, communication, administering payments, sending notifications, HIPAA de-identification as well as IRS reporting.
Key Responsibilities:
Day-to-Day Payout Administration
Compliance and Security
Communication and Security
System Optimization and Waste Reduction
A hierarchical system is effective because it combines oversight, control, and execution
Policy, fund management, system-wide compliance
Approve budgets, manage users, move funds, monitor all studies
Budget control, department operations
Fund studies, create studies, manage department admins, monitor department financials
Participant payouts, compliance, communication
Administer payments, send notifications, HIPAA de-identification, IRS reporting
Operational Efficiency
Coordinators can focus on participant experience rather than administrative logistics. Departments can create and fund studies quickly without waiting for enterprise approval for each step.
Compliance Assurance
A tiered oversight models safeguards that both HIPAA and SOC2 Type 2 requirements are consistently applied. For payments, IRS reporting and audit trails are automatically tracked and managed at every level.
Financial Control and Transparency
Enterprise and Department Admins can view financial rollups to monitor budget utilization. Waste is minimized by recapturing missed payments and by catching correcting errors quickly.
Scalability
Adding new studies or departments doesn’t disrupt or modify existing workflows. Study size isn’t an issue to accommodate large, multi-site studies without increasing operational complexity.
Participant Satisfaction
Automated, timely payouts as well as consistent branding and communications style enhance trust, participant confidence and retention. Coordinators can maintain personalized communication while leveraging automation efficiency.
When research institutions are planning to implement this model a number of best practices should be part of the planning process:
Define Roles and Responsibilities Clearly
Leverage Automation
Integrate with Existing Systems
Training
Monitor and Continuously Optimize
Managing participant payments in research studies doesn’t have to be chaotic.
Incentive Automation that allows for a three-tiered administrative hierarchy provides simple manageability, operational clarity, accountability, and operational efficiency.
Roles ensure that responsibility are correctly distributed among study management. Enterprise Administrators oversee system-wide policies and finances. Department Administrators manage study creation, funding, and management of department-level users, and Investigators and coordinators handle the day-to-day execution, participant communication, and compliance.
Together, these tiers create a scalable, compliant, and participant-focused payout system. Principle Investigators and coordinators have more time for science, sponsors gain financial transparency, and participants experience faster, reliable payments, while maintaining strict compliance with HIPAA, SOC2 Type 2, and IRS regulations.
Participant experience, compliance, and operational efficiency are paramount. TruCentive’s three-tiered payout management model is the best practice for research administration.
TruCentive is designed to remove the headaches of research payout management. This means research and administrative teams can focus on the important tasks rather than worrying about how to deliver payouts. Automation ensures that every participant feels valued, while the reporting features give leaders clarity about performance.
The ability to scale is what sets it apart. Whether a company needs to send fifty transactions a month or fifty thousand, the process remains consistent. No manual work, no delays, and no wasted resources.
A design session is the perfect way to show you how TruCentive can help you realize your rewards, gifts, or payout goals in a real-world scenario, building a complete project with everything from your logo, design options, and messaging to incentive selection, deliveries, and reminders.
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