The Doctor Will See You Now
After 8 long months of immersion in the health insurance space, speaking with subject matter experts, and designing a way to approach the financial aspects of insurance through health, we can’t believe we’re at the end of our project.
In our last post, we showcased a lot of the progress we had made in fleshing out our motivational features and creating a cohesive system that can both address member needs and nudge them to get their preventive tests done. Now, we’re excited to showcase our final solution.
Introducing Benchmarc
For a majority of the project we had referred to our app as a health map, guiding members through what they should do to stay healthy and save money in the long run, and for a while this stuck as its name. But as we got closer to our final presentation, we wanted to strengthen our brand identity and create something more unique, something that would stand out to members and not feel the same as all the other materials they’ve received from their insurance.
We went through a long round of name ideation. Some honorable mentions include words that relate to getting high marks (like a cheat sheet or a tutor), words related to creating a strong foundation for health (like root or backbone), and words related to preventive care more directly (like prevent’d or checkup).
Ultimately, we landed on Benchmarc. By definition a benchmark is “a standard or point of reference against which things may be compared or assessed.” We chose this because our app isn’t a comprehensive list of everything members can do to stay healthy (there are many aspects like behavior and exercise that we don’t focus on). Rather, we’re giving them a place to start, and a benchmark to track their early progress against.
Moreover, benchmark has the same ending as Highmark (we just swapped out the “k” for a “c” as a callback to our earlier chatbot concept AskMarc). This similarity will help us connect our app into Highmark’s brand architecture more seamlessly.
Our Final Prototype
The iteration between our mid-high fidelity prototype and our final high fidelity included a big focus on visual consistency in additional finalizing the structure of our features. This included shifting to a blue-green gradient color scheme, representing the intersection between Highmark and the Allegheny Health Network (together, Highmark’s IDFS). We also settled on a card style layout to group related sets of information and create a clearer organization hierarchy on each page.
For our onboarding, we moved away from our “pig and flower” game and focused on highlighting the dissonance between what people value and what they actually do. We kept this interactive, allowing members to select what they do to stay healthy and save money now, and explaining how getting preventive tests relates to saving money if they don’t select that option.
The onboarding also collects family history information (which is valuable to know from a Highmark perspective) and explains how preventive tests can help members avoid related health issues. It was clear that this association resonated with the members when tested.
“It is a very important asset in my life, I would keep it for as long as I live.”
Our test page and test details page remained largely the same as our previous iteration, with the biggest difference coming in how we bundle tests for one visit. We made significant improvements in grouping tests by physician, but still needed to flesh out how to configure the booking process. To make it as simple as possible, we had the book button on the test list page open up checkboxes next to each test, making it clear that members could select multiple before going to the external Highmark booking portal.
“It would be empowering to take away the guesswork [when booking].”
Our expenses page got a new graph that more clearly demonstrated the sunk cost effect of members paying their premium and then not taking advantage of Highmark’s covered services. We also worked in additional transparency into cost both here and on the test-specific pages to give members a clearer idea of what they should expect to pay based on their specific insurance plan.
“After reading this, looks like I haven’t been getting any tests done; so I would’ve been getting my money’s worth if i got the tests.”
Our biometrics page also remained largely the same, but we removed the filtering feature that allowed members to change the underlying distribution of measurements they were comparing themselves to. Testing showed that while the interactive element was nice, its purpose was often not clear and not useful to members. Rather, forcing the distribution to be similar to them in terms of age, sex, and tobacco use proved much more impactful for members, as well as just being able to see their measurements in context.
“I never understood what those numbers meant anyways, it’s nice that they’re here.”
Finally, our family page received a redesign so that the test and biometric information had the same visuals and layout as in the other pages. We also wanted to increase the focus on privacy, so members can only see biometric measurements for people on their plan (with their permission), while for anyone else added they would only be able to see the population distributions. This respects privacy while still empowering members to care for each other’s health.
“I will recommend this to my kids so that they can plan ahead.”
To see our full high-fidelity prototypes, feel free to visit the links below!
Our Major Design Considerations
As Benchmarc took its final form, there were some high-level decisions we made that we felt would be critical to the app’s adoption and success.
As mentioned above, the first is member privacy, because our research showed that a lot of members might not feel comfortable sharing their data with insurance immediately. Respecting this privacy is a huge pathway to building trust in the insurance system, so we can’t try to coerce members into sharing information by removing functionality in parts of the app (for example, displaying a blank biometrics page). Rather, we wanted to create value in our visualizations even without personal information (such as seeing the distribution of population measurements) to still promote usage and build trust over time. This way, we can work to build a relationship that fosters trust and will push members naturally to be more willing to share their data.
Similarly, when members do provide their information we need to act passively with it at first, as many still do not trust that insurance will not use their data for other purposes. Currently Benchmarc just displays data for easy access, but as trust builds over time this could transition to a format where we provide more in-depth insights and recommendations to members. We just need to work up to that relationship over time.
Finally, we chose to make Benchmarc its own app rather than embedding it in Highmark’s existing member portal. Our research showed that members already don’t go to their insurance portal unless they have to, and we wanted Benchmarc to start on a blank slate with members. Additionally, members want insurance to come to them, and the mobile app format adds a great deal of convenience and access toward this end.
Wrapping Up
We want to thank everyone from Highmark who was a part of our research (particularly our contacts Hugh and Eric), and who helped support our work by attending our presentations, participating in our lunch-and-learn, and providing us with materials and insights into how Highmark works. The feedback we received for Benchmarc was overwhelmingly positive and Highmark has demonstrated great energy and enthusiasm for our work.
We want to also thank our faculty, Matt and Rita, and the rest of the MHCI admin for their constant support, guidance, and the huge amount of work they put in to make the Capstone experience as meaningful and impactful as it is.
And finally we want to thank the rest of our cohort, both for acting as participants in many of our interviews and experiments and for creating an amazing sense of community and camaraderie that was critical especially through all the ups and downs of the past 8 months.
And with that, the doctor is ready to see you for your preventive appointment. We’ll let you go, but we wanted to say thanks to you for tagging along through our whole process. Stay healthy!
-The A Team
