Technology delivers solutions, but designing technology around a problem can deliver truly revolutionary innovations. By simplifying processes that we’ve accepted as the norm, we can better serve consumers. This provides an incredible business advantage in a market where products or services succeed when they deliver a simple user experience.
Game-changing companies like Zappos, Amazon, Uber and more use technology to be a consumer experience innovator. They’ve designed technology so artfully that they flip the tables on their competition (and the businesses models that have come before them). They solve a problem and give consumers an incredible experience. Websites and apps designed to cut right to the core of a consumer’s need. People buy shoes from Zappos or goods from Amazon because it’s simple and focused on the customer. You can browse, review, purchase and return in a way that has been simply designed for us real people. Need a ride? Open Uber and it couldn’t be easier. That’s a stark change from struggling to hail a cab on a busy city street. And the experience of using the app is good enough that people will keep coming back.
Businesses today are learning to leverage the principles of simple design with the power of technology to deliver experiences centered on consumers. That means success stories. The innovators who succeed today are those who see an opportunity to grow by offering a superior product to improve a consumer’s experience.
But why isn’t it the same for healthcare?
Hospital hallways are carefully designed to move people. Breakthroughs continue to be made in the technology of care; driving innovative treatment to save and improve lives. Patient experience is scrutinized and led by specialists who have made it a career. Much of the healthcare experience has been designed to better serve the clinical experience of patients, but what about the conclusion of a patient’s experience with healthcare services?
There are opportunities to improve crucial touch points like the delivery of statements, bills and explanations of benefits (EOBs). Even something as important as the payment experience actually creates hurdles for consumers. According to a study by Mad*Pow, 56 percent of Americans hesitate to even seek treatment because of confusion over the billing experience. The consumption of healthcare services – often through multiple providers, multiple resources and multiple billing sources – delivers an avalanche of papers and paperwork for the consumer. Does that not count as a part of the consumer experience? Can we not improve the billing experience with technology and design?
Surely there is an opportunity to use technology and design to deliver an ideal consumer experience for healthcare billing and payment systems.
Instead of leaving consumers to piece together an avalanche of information and mailers, healthcare leaders can remove the burden by adopting a system that makes their consumer’s experience better, and leaves them to focus on the things that are important to them – like paying the bill and moving on. Healthcare leaders can give consumers one clear bill. A bill that is easy to read and easy to pay.
That’s an innovation that can position any healthcare company as a standout provider of a superior customer experience.
At Health Payment Systems (HPS), we’ve developed the first truly consumer-centric billing system for healthcare services. It eliminates billing confusion with a consumer-first approach that consolidates a consumer’s healthcare bills and EOB claim information into one statement so consumers know exactly what to pay. By placing the consumer at the center of our solution, we developed an experience – based in technology – to make things easier. The results not only provide a solution for healthcare consumers, but also deliver powerful benefits to employers, healthcare providers, health plans and third-party administrators.
In the end, all of our modern focus on technology and digital services has one crucial outcome – an opportunity to design a better experience for customers, for people in their everyday lives. As leaders in healthcare management, with the right points of focus, we can deliver an innovative, designed experience for customers and, in doing so, we can mark a point of differentiation for our businesses.
So ask yourself, are you focused on the entire consumer experience?
And if not, what are you going to do about it?