J.D. Power recently released its annual U.S. Commercial Member Health Plan Study. The study surveyed nearly 30,000 members of 147 health plans in 22 U.S. regions to determine how they rated their health plans in eight key areas. Based on the survey, members are dissatisfied with their commercial health plan’s member experience.
The report found a universal problem across nearly every health plan: the digital customer experience. Commercial health plans achieved an overall digital experience satisfaction score of just 565. That’s well below other service industries like mortgage origination (730), direct banking (718), telehealth (698), and even Medicare Advantage (652).
Here’s a look at three common health plan digital experience issues and examples of how other industries have solved them.
Unfriendly Interfaces
We’ve all experienced unfriendly interfaces. Oddly, they used to be very common on marketing agency websites. These organizations spent so much time designing a beautiful site – with clever animation or videos, evocative images, and vibrant colors – but navigation was a tiny hamburger menu in the upper right-hand corner that no one could find.
Take the case of Rocket Mortgage. They’ve gained significant market share because they focused on a great user experience. That includes:
- Streamlined Application: Rocket Mortgage is known for its online application process. Users can complete the entire application, including income verification and document upload, from their computer or mobile device.
- Transparency and Certainty: They offer real-time pre-approval and estimated closing costs, providing transparency and reducing uncertainty throughout the process.
- Simple Interface: The user interface is clean, intuitive, and designed for ease of use, even for those unfamiliar with the mortgage process.
As a result, I once had a co-worker tell me he refinanced his house multiple times through Rocket Mortgage. Do you think your members are recommending your health plan digital experience to their co-workers and friends?
Tips
Consider these simple tips when designing a user interface:
- Review Your Navigation: Don’t hide your navigation. Have internal and external sources review the navigation or use tools like Hotjar or CrazyEgg to analyze how traffic interacts with your digital tools. Poor navigation is one of the key reasons people will abandon your digital resources, so make sure it works.
- Clear Navigation Labels: Be specific in your navigation. Having unclear links makes it difficult for members to understand where they’re going. Additionally, it leads to unnecessary clicks.
- Use Breadcrumbs if Possible: Breadcrumbs enable users to track their location within the website structure, making it easier to navigate to previous sections.
Inconsistent Design
Many health plans’ growth strategy includes consolidation. The strategy leads to member acquisition but results in inconsistent design as the two brands and their subsequent digital experiences merge.
Many health plans leverage a software vendor’s digital resources, leading to a disjointed experience. For example, our premium billing software includes a premium billing payment portal that health plans can integrate into the member experience workflow. Ensure the vendor can tightly integrate with your member portal. Vendors like Certifi commonly use single sign-on (SSO) and can brand any member-facing payment portal with your fonts, colors, and logo. Hence, it’s not a significant departure from your digital assets.
Tips
For mobile applications:
- Use consistent navigation menus across different sections: An app where the navigation menu changes its location, format, or functionality depending on the section can be confusing for users.
- Don’t mix interaction styles: Using a combination of swipe gestures, buttons, and voice commands without clear consistency can be hard to learn and navigate.
- Be consistent when using icons or symbols: Using different icons to represent the same function throughout the app or using unclear or ambiguous icons can confuse users.
Poor Use of Forms and Form Feedback
TurboTax became a market-leading tax product because it understood the power of easy-to-use forms and form feedback. Completing taxes can be a frustrating experience, but TurboTax’s form-based workflow simplifies the process, gathering the required information, displaying real-time progress and tax status, and providing helpful information for each question. It’s a masterclass in how to use forms to simplify a complex process.
There are several forms that health plans use to capture information. I recently had a doctor’s appointment that required me to complete an online form to capture medical information. The process was a bit clunky. There were four sections I needed to complete. Each required multiple clicks to submit data. That included multiple “submit” buttons instead of a single one.
To make it worse, when I arrived at the office, the doctor didn’t have my responses to several online questions. I was disappointed to learn I wasted time completing the information online. I had to waste more time in my appointment answering the same questions.
Tips
For health plans, you may have enrollment forms, consent forms, medical history forms, etc., that members complete online. Ensure your forms are:
- Clear and Simple: Forms with excessive information requests, unclear instructions, or lack of progress indicators can lead to frustration and abandonment. Ensure your forms are brief, include additional context if necessary, and show a user their progress toward completion.
- Mobile-friendly and Easy to Complete: Many users will complete forms on a mobile device, so ensure you have a mobile-friendly form. Reuse data if you’re asking for it multiple times and pre-populate information you already know so members can more quickly complete necessary forms.
- Include Error Prevention and User Feedback: Real-time validation can catch errors as users enter information, like highlighting incorrect email formats, extra digits in a phone number, or missing required fields. Clear and actionable error messages help users rectify mistakes as they make them. Remove technical jargon and focus on explaining the problem and how to fix it.
Certifi’s health insurance premium billing and payment solutions help healthcare payers improve member satisfaction while reducing administrative costs.
