MDSave Direct
A healthcare platform offering transparent pricing and pre-packaged procedures, allowing patients to compare costs and access affordable care through upfront payment options.
Digital Health
B2B
SaaS
User Research
Personas
User Testing
Info Architecture
Prototypes
Interaction design
Visual design
I
Overview.
MDsave Direct is a healthcare bundling technology platform that facilitates an open healthcare marketplace, targeting patients with out-of-pocket costs. It offers fully bundled, discounted healthcare services in exchange for upfront payments from employers, PPOs, and providers. MDsave Direct has created over 7,000 consumer healthcare bundles and has subscriptions with over 2,000 providers in 167 hospital networks across the U.S.
II
Defining Personas.
The MDsave Direct user base includes individuals working within hospital networks. To ensure effective product releases and maintain focus, we refined our target personas to four key profiles: the CFO, Patient Advocates, Registrars, and Financial Counselors.
To better understand this diverse set of users, a junior UX designer and I collaborated on developing personas for these roles. With limited access to our customers, we organized a group exercise with the Sales and Support team, who have deep insights into these user profiles. Drawing from a range of methods, we designed an exercise tailored for a two-hour session. The main activity focused on defining four essential attributes for each user type.
Team Exercise
Pick your 4 most relevant/important items. Write them on a post it.
Present these 4 ideas to your group and place them on your shared board.
Cluster and group similar notes.
Dot Vote. Everyone gets 3 stickers and votes. You may divide evenly or place all 3 on one.
Only 4 can make it through.
Facts
1
Example: Rideshare user
Define demographic, environmental or other attributes for each group.
Lives in a city. Doesn't own a car. Tech Savvy. Gets drinks on the weekends.
Pain Points
2
Example: Rideshare user.
What are the top relevant problems that users face before using MDSave Direct?
Frustrated by paying for grocery deliveries. Annoyed by waiting for taxis when getting home from bars.
Behaviors
3
Example: Rideshare user.
What are the relevant behaviors that a user has before using MDSave Direct?
Some have tried to call multiple cabs at night. Others have waited to sober up & slept in car.
Motivations
4
Example: Rideshare user.
What is the user trying to accomplish when using MDSave Direct?
Maybe users need to get home safely from a bar on Saturday night after drinking.
After the group exercise, we analyzed our data and identified four key personas to guide our design approach: Rita the Registrar, Frances the Financial Counselor, Charles the CFO, and Phoebe the PAD. Each persona embodies unique roles, needs, and pain points within the user experience, allowing us to create targeted solutions that address specific challenges and improve usability across different user profiles.
III
Designing Robust Tools.
Dashboards were developed for hospitals to track MDsave’s ROI. These dashboards displayed metrics such as the number of vouchers sold, vouchers yet to be redeemed, most frequently performed procedures and specialties, and the impact of marketing efforts and referring doctors on revenue.
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Dashboards were developed for hospitals to track MDsave’s ROI. These dashboards displayed metrics such as the number of vouchers sold, vouchers yet to be redeemed, most frequently performed procedures and specialties, and the impact of marketing efforts and referring doctors on revenue.
Maps displaying a hospital's reach — where referrals are coming from, and how far patients are traveling for care.
IV
Streamlining Workflows.
The MDsave product and design team collaborated closely with hospitals' accounting teams to understand their workflows, identify pain points, and pinpoint common errors. This approach led to the design and release of features that streamlined workflows, minimized errors, reduced administrative costs, and improved payment collections.
Voucher redemption was streamlined.
Hospitals still deal with a lot of paper. Statements and other necessary printed material were redesigned , reducing the amount of paper by 50 to 90%.
V
Establishing a Visual Language.
I created the visual language for MDSave Direct, designing icons and illustrations that convey a sense of trust, friendliness, and accessibility. These elements were carefully crafted to make the platform feel approachable and dependable, helping users feel at ease and confident as they navigate their healthcare options.
MDsave's bundling and payment distribution model needed to demonstrate that any episode of care, from an x-ray to hip surgery, could be bundled using our scalable software. Each bundle would cover the fees of all relevant physicians, facilities, and practitioners, accommodate procedure or coding variations, and include any pre- or post-operative care.
Diagram illustrating how marketing efforts can amplify a hospital's conversion rate.
VI
Visualizing Complex Stories.
Visualizations were created to communicate and simplify complex concepts. These diagrams helped address a broad audience of business clients and prospective partners.
VII
Sitemaps.
I developed sitemaps and user flow diagrams for MDSave Direct to clearly communicate the site’s structure and how users would navigate through it. These tools served as a blueprint, ensuring that all team members had a clear understanding of the user journey and the layout, making it easier to build an intuitive and user-centered experience.
Phoebe the PAD
Please take this job PAD (Patient Administration Department)
Age
47
Income
$88,500
Income
$88,500
“I was here ‘til 7 last night, I’ve been in meetings all day, can I get back to you on that?”
Phoebe is very busy. She is in meetings all day, is dealing with constant staff turnover, and has a seemingly never-ending stream of upset patients that registrars have sent her way. She is almost at the point of looking for another job, if only she had the time to search.
When Phoebe is dealing with upset customers, sometimes she will call around to different doctors’ offices to figure out a rough estimate for them, and other times she just has to make something up. As with many of her colleagues, she is sometimes forced to overcharge patients to make up for deficits at POS.
Why Phoebe will use MDSave Direct
Phoebe will use Direct because it solves one of her biggest pain points, a quick quotable price for self-pay patients. In addition, she is in meetings all day and will only prioritize MDsave if she doesn’t have to spend extra time training new employees on it.
Goals
Phoebe wants more than anything to have a knowledgeable staff that provides a positive patient experience, and a better system for raining new employees.
In order to make her and her employees’ jobs easier, Phoebe wishes she had a quick quotable price to provide to patients.
Top Issues
-
High turnover of staff.
-
Sometimes staff doesn’t ask for payment at all.
-
There’s a lack of bundled payment options.
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She is evaluated on wait-time which she can’t always control
Charles the CFO
Profit-driven accountant who’s concerned about his job
Age
57
Income
$125,000
Education
Master's in Accounting
“I want more collections, volume, and market share. I want less overhead, debt, and confusion.”
Charles is a man who is motivated by one thing… profit. He is far less concerned about patient satisfaction, and far more concerned about the bottom line. Risks are something he is strongly averse to, and he will need to be thoroughly convinced before he breaks from the status quo and embraces any disruption in the healthcare marketplace.
Despite his resistance to change, he sometimes feels like he’s plugging holes in a sinking ship. Because there is so little transparency or understanding of healthcare costs, he is constantly forced to manually calculate patient costs. He knows how difficult collections can be, so in order to break even he tends to offer discounts and flat rates to patients who can promptly pay, while overbilling patients whose insurance will cover most of the cost.
Why Rita will use MDSave Direct
Charles will use Direct when he is thoroughly convinced that it will save money and help him to increase collections for cash-pay patients. One of his biggest concerns that will need to be addressed is market cannibalization, and he will need numbers to show this will not happen.
Goals
Primary: Charles wants to collect money. He cares about the bottom line and wants to increase volume and downstream revenue, while maximizing contracts.
Secondary: Charles just wants to have more time and to stop having to negotiate every last thing.
Top Issues
-
Low volume of customers at hospital
-
There’s a general lack of knowledge of procedure prices
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Constantly having to accept ‘one-off’ negotiations
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Collecting from patients is a nightmare
Frances the Financial Counselor
Frazzled but concerned financial counselor
Age
39
Income
$56,000
Education
High School Degree
“Help me help my patients.”
Frances thinks of herself as a patient advocate, even if she doesn’t always get the respect she deserves. She is often the frontline for angry patients, of which there is no shortage. She is overworked and underpaid.
While Frances is motivated by helping her patients, she must report her decisions to her immediate supervisors who are far more concerned about finances and the bottom line. Because of this, she often has to give unreasonable payment plan options to struggling patients, and scary ultimatums when they aren’t able to pay.
Why Frances will use MDSave Direct
Direct voucher purchases will greatly reduce Frances’ amount of work in the long run. Not only is this another, cheaper option for her to offer her cash-pay or high deductible patients, but once a purchase is made, her work is done – no need to stress about collections.
Goals
Frances’ main goal is to get past payment and get the patient care in a timely fashion.
Frances may get rated / a bonus based on point of service (POS) collections. Sometimes she just wants to make it through the day without getting yelled at by a patient.
Top Issues
-
Patients getting angry with her
-
Patients that can’t pay
-
Can’t offer enough options for cash-pay patients
-
Payment plans are overly complicated
Rita the Registrar
The overworked admin
Age
37
Income
$13.41 an hour
Education
GED
"Is it five o’clock yet?"
Rita has been working as a registrar for just over a year now… and she’s tired. She was excited when she first got the position, but now she’s exhausted from being yelled at by patients and supervisors. She used to do her best to help accomodate patients and assist with collections, but now she’s learned it’s easier to pass off any difficult collections and customers to the PAD.
One of her biggest complaints is her inability to help self pay patients out. Not only does she feel powerless to assist them, but because of the lack of price transparency and the high pressure to collect, Rita will often over collect to make up for POS sales and to stay out of trouble
Why Rita will use MDSave Direct
Rita will use Direct because someone much higher up than her told her to. She won’t actively tell patients about it until she realizes it will increase patient satisfaction, and reduce time spent on collections… making her job easier in the process.
Goals
She can’t help patients who don’t have insurance Rita has problems with collecting on debt as well as submitting collections Rita deals with frustrated patients all day. She wishes she were better equipped to help self-pay patients.
Top Issues
-
She can’t help patients who don’t have insurance
-
Rita has problems with collecting on debt as well as submitting collections
-
Rita deals with frustrated patients all day.
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She wishes she were better equipped to help self-pay patients.