Member self-service portals have become a must-have for healthcare payers. Members expect and demand them. Yet putting up a portal and just expecting members to use it is a fast track to failure and lost business.
Portals must provide more than information or access to forms. It must deliver an experience that is seamless and aligned with how, where and why members want to use it.
Think mobile from the start. When payers decide to launch a new portal, many (if not most) think of building the desktop version first, then adding a mobile version later when they have the resources available. Five years ago that may have been a valid strategy. But today, the prolific use of smartphones, tablets and phablets has made that way of thinking obsolete.
According to the Pew Research Internet Project, almost 60 percent of American adults own a smartphone, and 42 percent own a tablet. In addition, half of mobile phone users now rely on those devices as their primary means of accessing the Internet. This is especially true for Medicaid and other lower-income members, for whom a smartphone is often the only Internet access available. A Healthx 2014 Analytics Report sampled from all types of payers found that when comparing a Medicaid plan to a commercial plan where neither offers a mobile-optimized portal or mobile app, the Medicaid plan experienced 24 percent higher mobile traffic. In addition, the Medicaid plan that doesn't offer a specific mobile experience still receives 11 percent more mobile traffic than a commercial payer that actively promotes its mobile app.
Provide broad functionality. This is true whether members are accessing the portal from a desktop or mobile device. It is easy to get caught up in thinking you will start small to get the portal launched and then build capabilities as you go. Or that you will build only a basic mobile site and then catch it up to the desktop portal later. Yet if members go onto the portal and don't find value, they are unlikely to come back, even if the capabilities expand later.
Include mobile-specific functionality. As you think about the functionality, be sure to include the special capabilities mobile devices offer. For example, rather than requiring a user name and password to access the portal, consider tying in to the smartphone's biometric capabilities (such as Apple's Touch ID) to provide secure authentication and access. If a member is searching for a provider while away from home, the mobile device's GPS can be used by the portal to find physicians or hospitals in the plan within a 10 mile radius of their current location. It can also provide directions.
The phone's camera can be used to photograph and upload a receipt for instant payment from the member's flex account rather than waiting for a reimbursement later. You can create an interface that allows the data members save in Apple's HealthKit to be retrieved and shared with physicians or care managers. Rather than requiring a credit card, you can allow members to use Apple Pay to pay premiums and cover co-pays or deductibles..
Incorporate responsive design. Rather than creating separate desktop, smartphone, tablet and other versions of your portal, a better option is to use a technique called responsive design. Among other benefits, responsive design puts an end to the debate on whether to develop a fully-functional mobile site because it is focused on delivering the best user experience based on the size of the screen the member is using rather than the type of device. Since it is device-agnostic, only one version of the code must be developed and maintained instead of writing separate code for desktops and mobile devices. That alone will reduce your total cost of ownership while helping bring the portal to market faster.
Start from small screens and work up. In the past, most payers have started with a desktop version of their portal, then attempted to squeeze it down to fit onto tablets and smartphones -- usually removing functionality as they go. Whether you are using responsive design or not, that is the opposite of the approach you should take. Begin with the smallest screen size your members are using and build your full member experience to suit it. Then continue to stretch it into larger screens until it no longer makes sense. At that point, develop a second version and repeat the process until you have covered the full range of screen sizes. You will likely find that some pages require only three versions while others require several more, depending on the content. But working from small to large will ensure every member has a quality experience no matter how they choose to access your portal.
Design for a seamless user experience. When members click a link from your website to go to your portal, they shouldn't feel as though they've moved from the earth to the moon. Instead, your portal should appear to be just another page on your website, with the same branding, graphics, organization, color scheme, terminology, etc. Great care should also be taken with the user experience itself. It's important to think of members as consumers who use self-service portals from retailers, financial services companies, travel companies and other businesses in their daily lives. Those portals have set some high expectations for the user experience in terms of intuitive design, ease of use, ease of conducting transactions, ease of finding information, and other factors.
Customize content delivery by member type. In addition to customizing the way members see the portal by the type of screen they're using, you also want to be able to customize the content delivered to those screens based on member type, demographics, eligibility and other factors such as compliance with federal or state regulations. The more you can personalize what members see immediately, rather than making them hunt through irrelevant information to find what they need, the better their experience will be.
Ensure third party applications are also seamless. Many payers incorporate third-party applications, such as pharmacy or wellness information, to add functionality to their portals. While that is a great idea, you have to be careful that those vendors' applications support the mobile environment to the same standards as your portal. Remember that if you've done a great job of branding the portal, members won't see poor functionality from a third party, such as a digital ID card that is difficult to read, as the fault of your vendor. They'll see it as a bad experience with your portal, and you will pay the price. You can't control what third party vendors deliver, but you can control which ones you choose.
Michael Gordon is the chief product and strategy officer at Healthx.