Designing a Medical Cost Estimator

The Client
Baylor, Scott & White - Texas largest healthcare provider network
The Objective
Design a cost estimator for account holders of the hospital app, providing reliable and accurate information for a medical procedure, for various user groups in the medical field.
Role & Tasks
As lead user experience designer, I facilitated ideation sessions with key stakeholders, engineers and UI designer, and advocated for a user-friendly and scalable solution, from conception to completion of the first design iteration.
About The Project
Competitive analysis revealed that many other healthcare companies make users go through many steps for an unreliable cost estimate. Many cost estimate tools also miss a comparison feature of providers and rates.

Understanding the problem

Leading discovery workshops with the client, my goal was to get a broad understanding of cost estimators while managing expectations, and building a common understanding of the project milestones and technical feasibility.

How do medical cost estimators work?

  • How does the Cost Estimator work and which variables does it need to calculate a procedure?
  • Can we reduce the amount of variables?
  • Who are the user groups of the Cost Estimator?
  • Do different user groups require user authentication and authorization mechanisms?
  • Can we leverage data to provide real-time pricing information to stay accurate?
  • Does the it need to generate reports and analytics, to anticipate user needs in the future?
  • Does the Cost Estimator maintain or access a catalog of codes for each medical procedure?
  • What are health industry regulations that we need to consider in the design?
  • How transparent is the tool, in its accuracy and how it works?

What is technically possible?

  • Can we integrate the cost estimator with the EHR - electronic health records system?
  • How does it protect patient's privacy data and hospital's legal and ethical standards?
  • Compliance with HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act)
  • Can we ensure real-time data updates?
  • How can we include analytics and reporting features to track usage, analyze cost trends,
    and identify areas for personalization?

Other Considerations

  • How can we design the cost estimator so it's scalable?
  • How can we accommodate variations in medical procedures, terminology, insurance plans and
    regional cost differences?
  • Can we offer transparency in how the estimate is being calculated, in order to gain patient's trust?
  • How can we keep this tool simple, effective and accurate?

Who are the users of a medical cost estimator?

  • Who are the user groups, and how do their needs differ?
  • When does a patient decide to use a medical estimator?
  • Why and how does a patient use the medical estimator tool? (input fields)
  • Which information do they expect to find? (output info)
  • What are the deciding factors for calculating an estimate for a medical procedure?
  • Do patients wish to compare cost estimates?
  • If patient is already logged in, do we show out-of network options?
  • Do patients have trust in the accuracy of an estimate - and how can we gain their trust?

First conclusions!

The cost estimator is a complex tool, and consist of three components

  • search tool
  • search results page
  • comparison feature

Getting to know the users of the cost estimator

Having a better understanding of the cost estimator, I then defined user archetypes and created personas.
My goal was to understand the pain points, motivations, and tech savviness of each group.

Uncovering key entry points of the cost estimator

Contextualizing the cost estimator within the end-to-end patient journey, I uncovered decision markers when and why people decide to download the app, in order to use the cost estimator. I first hypothesized and then validated pain points and how they might likely influence a decision in user testing sessions.

How do we - Statements

  • make sure that users can easily input their medical information into the cost estimator?
  • design a mobile-responsive version of the medical cost estimator for users on the go?
  • minimize the number of steps required for users to obtain an accurate cost estimate?
  • provide clear and detailed explanations for each cost estimate component
    to enhance transparency?
  • integrate real-time data updates into the estimator to ensure accuracy?
  • customize the user experience to cater to different types of medical procedures?
  • ensure that the estimator complies with relevant privacy and security standards for healthcare data?
  • conduct usability testing to identify pain points and continuously improve the
    user experience of the cost estimator?
  • educate users about the benefits and limitations of the medical cost estimator
    to manage their expectations effectively?

Initial product iterations